Not Quite Dubya : Obama Tackles the NSA

[boutons_deux]

'Follow the Money': NSA Spies on International Payments

The National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions, according to do ents seen by SPIEGEL.

The information from the American foreign intelligence agency, acquired by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, show that the spying is conducted by a branch called "Follow the Money" (FTM). The collected information then flows into the NSA's own financial databank, called "Tracfin," which in 2011 contained 180 million records. Some 84 percent of the data is from credit card transactions.

Further NSA do ents from 2010 show that the NSA also targets the transactions of customers of large credit card companies like VISA for surveillance. NSA analysts at an internal conference that year described in detail how they had apparently successfully searched through the US company's complex transaction network for tapping possibilities.

Their aim was to gain access to transactions by VISA customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to one presentation. The goal was to "collect, parse and ingest transactional data for priority credit card associations, focusing on priority geographic regions."

In response to a SPIEGEL inquiry, however, VISA issued a statement in which it said, "We are not aware of any unauthorized access to our network. Visa takes data security seriously and, in response to any attempted intrusion, we would pursue all available remedies to the fullest extent of the law. Further, its Visa's policy to only provide transaction information in response to a subpoena or other valid legal process."

The NSA's Tracfin data bank also contained data from the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a network used by thousands of banks to send transaction information securely. SWIFT was named as a "target," according to the do ents, which also show that the NSA spied on the organization on several levels, involving, among others, the agency's "tailored access operations" division. One of the ways the agency accessed the data included reading "SWIFT printer traffic from numerous banks," the do ents show.


But even intelligence agency employees are somewhat concerned about spying on the world finance system, according to one do ent from the UK's intelligence agency GCHQ concerning the legal perspectives on "financial data" and the agency's own cooperations with the NSA in this area. The collection, storage and sharing of politically sensitive data is a deep invasion of privacy, and involved "bulk data" full of "rich personal information," much of which "is not about our targets," the do ent says.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-922276.html

NSA is twerking to The Great Boutons' "one note" tune of follow the money.

Now if only DoJ/IRS could "follow" the 1% and corporate $Ts through Bahamas, Puerto Rico, US VI, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, etc, etc to catch criminal tax evaders like Mutt "rich dog" Romney, aka, Most Holy Bishop Gecko.

[Winehole23]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...-servers.shtml

Between 15,000 to 15,999 Microsoft-user accounts were the subject of FISA court orders requesting content during the first six months of 2013, the company said.

Still, Smith cited media reports - based on Snowden's leaked do ents - that the government may have intercepted user information without tech companies' knowledge or cooperation, by tapping into communications cables that link Google and Yahoo datacenters.

"Despite the President's reform efforts and our ability to publish more information, there has not yet been any public commitment by either the U.S. or other governments to renounce the attempted hacking of Internet companies," he said on Microsoft's blog. "We believe the Cons ution requires that our government seek information from American companies within the rule of law."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A121H920140203

[boutons_deux]

for everything done since January, 2009? undoubtedly.

As if the explosion of post-9/11 spying bureaurcracy was retired totally on 19 Jan, and Obama started his own 20 Jan.

[Winehole23]

Tory Obama, caretaker of power. Obama chose what he'd be.

[Winehole23]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUokM5d1qic

[Winehole23]

Today, an Oklahoma state House committee voted 9-3 to pass a bill designed to thwart warrantless surveillance programs of the National Security Agency (NSA), while a New Hampshire house committee voted 12-1 to approve a bill blocking some practical effects of federal spying.

The Oklahoma Privacy Protection Act (HB2808) was introduced by Rep. Lewis Moore last month. It would prohibit state material support or assistance to the spy agency. It reads, in part:


“It is the public policy of this state to refuse material support, participation or assistance to any federal agency which claims the power to authorize, or with any federal law, rule, regulation or order which purports to authorize, the collection of electronic data or metadata of any person pursuant to any action not based on a warrant that particularly describes the person, place or thing to be searched or seized.”


The bill faced its first hurdle today, with an important hearing and vote in the House Committee on States Rights. It needed a majority vote to move forward.


The legislation would ban Oklahoma from providing material support or resources to the operation of any federal facilities engaged in the warrantless surveillance of people in the Sooner state. While the NSA does not operate a physical facility in the state, the prohibition of material support sends an important message to the spy agency by pulling up the welcome mat.


“We know the NSA is aggressively expanding its physical locations around the country from Utah to Texas and elsewhere,” Trejo said. “Since the NSA rarely tells us its plans in advance, it is absolutely essential to make sure that states pass this legislation to cut them off at the pass. Our plan is to box them in and do everything we can to stop them.”


The legislation also bans the use of warrantless data in state courts. A Reuters report last year revealed that the NSA shares data with state and local law enforcement through a secret outfit called the Special Operation Division (SOD). The federal government also shares data mined by its agencies, including the NSA, through “fusion centers.


Reports in the Washington Post and USA Today last fall do ented how “the FBI and most other investigative bodies in the federal government” are regularly using a mobile device known as a “stingray” to intercept and collect electronic data without a warrant. Local and state police “have access through sharing agreements.”


“What we’re trying to prevent is the unlawful sending of data in an investigation where there was no warrant…in violation of your Fourth Amendment rights,” Moore said.

http://nullifynsa.com/?p=783

[Winehole23]

more proposed anti-NSA legislation

Oregon joins the growing list of states considering legislation to protect private data and end some of the practical effects of NSA spying.

Sen. Larry George (R-Sherwood), Sen. Chip Shields (D-Portland), Rep. John Huffman (R-the Dalles) and Rep. Jennifer Williamson (D-Portland) together introduced SB1583 earlier this month. The legislation would prohibit any public body in Oregon from obtaining personal electronic data or cell phone location data without a warrant with only a few exceptions. The proposed law would allow for collection of data without a warrant with the individual’s consent, with an employer’s consent if the employer owns the device searched, if probable cause that a person committed a crime and exigent cir stances exist, if the data is necessary to prevent death or injury, or if it is necessary to locate a missing person.

http://nullifynsa.com/?p=778

[boutons_deux]

"it's only metadata"

MetaPhone: The Sensitivity of Telephone Metadata


We used crowdsourced data to arrive at empirical answers. Since November, we have been conducting a study of phone metadata privacy. Participants run the MetaPhone app on their Android smartphone; it submits device logs and social network information for analysis. In previous posts, we have used the MetaPhone dataset to spot relationships, understand call graph interconnectivity, and estimate the identifiability of phone numbers.

At the outset of this study, we shared the same hypothesis as our computer science colleagues—we thought phone metadata could be very sensitive. We did not anticipate finding much evidence one way or the other, however, since the MetaPhone participant population is small and participants only provide a few months of phone activity on average.

We were wrong. We found that phone metadata is unambiguously sensitive, even in a small population and over a short time window. We were able to infer medical conditions, firearm ownership, and more, using solely phone metadata.

Pattern Results

A pattern of calls will often, of course, reveal more than individual call records. During our analysis, we encountered a number of patterns that were highly indicative of sensitive activities or traits. The following examples are drawn directly from our dataset, using number identification through public resources. Though most MetaPhone participants consented to having their iden y disclosed, we use pseudonyms in this report to protect participant privacy.

• Participant A communicated with multiple local neurology groups, a specialty pharmacy, a rare condition management service, and a hotline for a pharmaceutical used solely to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis.
• Participant B spoke at length with cardiologists at a major medical center, talked briefly with a medical laboratory, received calls from a pharmacy, and placed short calls to a home reporting hotline for a medical device used to monitor cardiac arrhythmia.
• Participant C made a number of calls to a firearm store that specializes in the AR semiautomatic rifle platform. They also spoke at length with customer service for a firearm manufacturer that produces an AR line.
• In a span of three weeks, Participant D contacted a home improvement store, locksmiths, a hydroponics dealer, and a head shop.
• Participant E had a long, early morning call with her sister. Two days later, she placed a series of calls to the local Planned Parenthood location. She placed brief additional calls two weeks later, and made a final call a month after.

We were able to corroborate Participant B’s medical condition and Participant C’s firearm ownership using public information sources. Owing to the sensitivity of these matters, we elected to not contact Participants A, D, or E for confirmation.

Conclusion

The dataset that we analyzed in this report spanned hundreds of users over several months. Phone records held by the NSA and telecoms span millions of Americans over multiple years. Reasonable minds can disagree about the policy and legal constraints that should be imposed on those databases. The science, however, is clear: phone metadata is highly sensitive.

http://webpolicy.org/2014/03/12/meta...hone-metadata/

[Winehole23]

inside baseball, competing NSA reform bills:

Congressional critics of the bulk collection of telephone records by the National Security Agency fear that its allies are cir venting them in the House of Representatives.

The House parliamentarian, who oversees procedural matters, has determined that a new bill that substantially modifies the seminal 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will go through the intelligence committee rather than the judiciary committee, a move that two congressional aides consider “highly unusual.”


Seemingly an arcane parliamentary issue, the jurisdiction question reveals a subterranean and intense fight within the House about the future course of US surveillance in the post-Edward Snowden era. The fight does not align with partisan divides, with both sides claiming both Republican and Democratic support.


The bill, authored by Republican Mike Rogers of Michigan and Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, would largely get the NSA out of the business of collecting US phone data in bulk. Rogers and Ruppersberger, both staunch advocates of the NSA and until now just as staunch defenders of bulk collection, are the leaders of the intelligence committee.


Yet the House judiciary committee thought it was the natural choice for primary legislative jurisdiction over the Fisa Transparency and Modernization Act, introduced on Tuesday. While the intelligence committee oversees US spy activities, the judiciary committee has oversight responsibilities over surveillance law.


The judiciary committee is also a stronghold of support for a rival bill, the USA Freedom Act, two of whose principal sponsors are its top Democrat and a former GOP chairman. The Freedom Act also ends NSA bulk collection, but includes more civil libertarian provisions, such as the prior approval of a judge to force phone companies to turn over customer data and a threshold requirement of relevance to an ongoing investigation to secure such approval.


Ruppersberger, in a press conference on Tuesday, blasted the USA Freedom Act, saying it would make Americans “less safe.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...rm-bill-switch

[Winehole23]

USG undermining its own bona fides:

Security industry pioneer RSA adopted not just one but two encryption tools developed by the U.S. National Security Agency, greatly increasing the spy agency's ability to eavesdrop on some Internet communications, according to a team of academic researchers.

Reuters reported in December that the NSA had paid RSA $10 million to make a now-discredited cryptography system the default in software used by a wide range of Internet and computer security programs. The system, called Dual Elliptic Curve, was a random number generator, but it had a deliberate flaw - or "back door" - that allowed the NSA to crack the encryption.


A group of professors from Johns Hopkins, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois and elsewhere now say they have discovered that a second NSA tool exacerbated the RSA software's vulnerability.


The professors found that the tool, known as the "Extended Random" extension for secure websites, could help crack a version of RSA's Dual Elliptic Curve software tens of thousands of times faster, according to an advance copy of their research shared with Reuters.
While Extended Random was not widely adopted, the new research sheds light on how the NSA extended the reach of its surveillance under cover of advising companies on protection.


RSA, now owned by EMC Corp, did not dispute the research when contacted by Reuters for comment. The company said it had not intentionally weakened security on any product and noted that Extended Random did not prove popular and had been removed from RSA's protection software in the last six months.


"We could have been more skeptical of NSA's intentions," RSA Chief Technologist Sam Curry told Reuters. "We trusted them because they are charged with security for the U.S. government and U.S. critical infrastructure."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...40331?irpc=932

[Winehole23]

Clapper confirms backdoor surveillance against "US persons":

US intelligence chiefs have confirmed that the National Security Agency has used a "backdoor" in surveillance law to perform warrantless searches on Americans’ communications.


The NSA's collection programs are ostensibly targeted at foreigners, but in August the Guardian revealed a secret rule change allowing NSA analysts to search for Americans' details within the databases.


Now, in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the intelligence committee, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has confirmed for the first time this backdoor had been used in practice to search for data related to “US persons”.


“There have been queries, using US person identifiers, of communications lawfully acquired to obtain foreign intelligence targeting non-US persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States,” Clapper wrote in the letter, which has been obtained by the Guardian.


“These queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the Fisa court and consistent with the statute and the fourth amendment.”


The legal authority to perform the searches, revealed in top-secret NSA do ents provided to the Guardian by Edward Snowden, was denounced by Wyden as a “backdoor search loophole.”
Clapper did not disclose how many such searches had been performed by the NSA.


At a recent hearing of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, administration lawyers defended their la ude to perform such searches. The board is scheduled to deliver a report on the legal authority under which the communications are collected, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), passed in 2008.


In December 2012, Wyden and Colorado Democrat Mark Udall failed to persuade their fellow Senate intelligence committee members to prevent such warrantless searches during the re-authorisation of the 2008 Fisa Amendments Act, which wrote Section 702 into law.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...americans-data

[boutons_deux]

New Leaks Show NSA, GCHQ Infiltrating Private German Companies


http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...ompanies.shtml

[Winehole23]

Clapper criminalizes lower level IC press contact relating to unclassified information:

The Director of National Intelligence has forbidden most intelligence community employees from discussing “intelligence-related information” with a reporter unless they have specific authorization to do so, according to an Intelligence Community Directive that was issued last month.


“IC employees… must obtain authorization for contacts with the media” on intelligence-related matters, and “must also report… unplanned or unintentional contact with the media on covered matters,” the Directive stated.


The new Directive reflects — and escalates — tensions between the government and the press over leaks of classified information. It is intended “to mitigate risks of unauthorized disclosures of intelligence-related matters that may result from such contacts.” See Intelligence Community Directive 119, Media Contacts, March 20, 2014.


Significantly, however, the new prohibition does not distinguish between classified and unclassified intelligence information. The “covered matters” that require prior authorization before an employee may discuss them with a reporter extend to any topic that is “related” to intelligence, irrespective of its classification status.


The Directive prohibits unauthorized “contact with the media about intelligence-related information, including intelligence sources, methods, activities, and judgments (hereafter, ‘covered matters’).”


If an employee’s contact with the media involves an unauthorized disclosure of classified information, then he could be subject to criminal prosecution. But even if classified information were not communicated to the reporter, the Directive indicates, violation of the new policy “at a minimum… will be handled in the same manner as a security violation.”

http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2014/04/media-contacts/

[Winehole23]

NSA spying continues to hurt US companies:

http://www.itworld.com/networking/42...ause-us-spying
http://www.sfgate.com/business/techn...ch-5584139.php

[Jacob1983]

Obama is Bush on steroids when it comes to this . Obama's administration is sneaky as on this .

[boutons_deux]

Obama is Bush on steroids when it comes to this . Obama's administration is sneaky as on this .

The national security/police state is a country, a govt unto itself, A Few Good Men think they are manning the ramparts, totally out of control, beyond the reach of ANY politicians.

btw, the financial sector is exactly the same, an out-of-control, self-enriching, wealth-sucking, totally corrupt, predatory activity the politicians won't touch.

[Winehole23]

if you click the link, you might make the list too:

NSA Targets the Privacy-Conscious for Surveillance

Jake Appelbaum et. al, are reporting on XKEYSCORE selection rules that target users -- and people who just visit the websites of -- Tor, Tails, and other sites. This isn't just metadata; this is "full take" content that's stored forever.

This code demonstrates the ease with which an XKeyscore rule can analyze the full content of intercepted connections. The fingerprint first checks every message using the "email_address" function to see if the message is to or from "[email protected]". Next, if the address matched, it uses the "email_body" function to search the full content of the email for a particular piece of text - in this case, "https://bridges.torproject.org/". If the "email_body" function finds what it is looking for, it passes the full email text to a C++ program which extracts the bridge addresses and stores them in a database.


[...]
It is interesting to note that this rule specifically avoids fingerprinting users believed to be located in Five Eyes countries, while other rules make no such distinction. For instance, the following fingerprint targets users visiting the Tails and Linux Journal websites, or performing certain web searches related to Tails, and makes no distinction about the country of the user.


[...]
There are also rules that target users of numerous other privacy-focused internet services, including HotSpotShield, FreeNet, Centurian, FreeProxies.org, MegaProxy, privacy.li and an anonymous email service called MixMinion as well as its predecessor MixMaster. The appid rule for MixMinion is extremely broad as it matches all traffic to or from the IP address 128.31.0.34, a server located on the MIT campus.

It's hard to tell how extensive this is. It's possible that anyone who clicked on this link -- with the embedded torproject.org URL above -- is currently being monitored by the NSA. It's possible that this only will happen to people who receive the link in e-mail, which will mean every Crypto-Gram subscriber in a couple of weeks. And I don't know what else the NSA harvests about people who it selects in this manner.


Whatever the case, this is very disturbing.


EDITED TO ADD (7/3): The BoingBoing story says that this was first published on Tagesschau. Can someone who can read German please figure out where this originated.


And, since Cory said it, I do not believe that this came from the Snowden do ents. I also don't believe the TAO catalog came from the Snowden do ents. I think there's a second leaker out there.


EDITED TO ADD (7/3): More news stories. Thread on Reddit. I don't expect this to get much coverage in the US mainstream media.

EDITED TO ADD (7/3): Here is the code. In part:

// START_DEFINITION /* These variables define terms and websites relating to the TAILs (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) software program, a comsec mechanism advocated by extremists on extremist forums. */
$TAILS_terms=word('tails' or 'Amnesiac Incognito Live System') and
word('linux'
or ' USB ' or ' CD ' or 'secure desktop' or ' IRC ' or 'truecrypt' or '
tor ');
$TAILS_websites=('tails.boum.org/') or ('linuxjournal.com/content/linux*');
// END_DEFINITION
// START_DEFINITION
/*
This fingerprint identifies users searching for the TAILs (The Amnesic
Incognito Live System) software program, viewing do ents relating to
TAILs,
or viewing websites that detail TAILs.
*/
fingerprint('ct_mo/TAILS')=
fingerprint('do ents/comsec/tails_doc') or web_search($TAILS_terms) or
url($TAILS_websites) or html_ le($TAILS_websites);
// END_DEFINITION

Hacker News and Slashdot threads. ArsTechnica and Wired articles.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archiv....html#c6673566

[Winehole23]

Ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by the National Security Agency from U.S. digital networks, according to a four-month investigation by The Washington Post.


Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else.


Many of them were Americans. Nearly half of the surveillance files, a strikingly high proportion, contained names, e-mail addresses or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to U.S. citizens or residents. NSA analysts masked, or “minimized,” more than 65,000 such references to protect Americans’ privacy, but The Post found nearly 900 additional e-mail addresses, unmasked in the files, that could be strongly linked to U.S. citizens or U.S.residents.


The surveillance files highlight a policy dilemma that has been aired only abstractly in public. There are discoveries of considerable intelligence value in the intercepted messages — and collateral harm to privacy on a scale that the Obama administration has not been willing to address.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...rc=al_national

[Winehole23]

so much for the OP:

The material spans President Obama’s first term, from 2009 to 2012, a period of exponential growth for the NSA’s domestic collection.


Taken together, the files offer an unprecedented vantage point on the changes wrought by Section 702 of the FISA amendments, which enabled the NSA to make freer use of methods that for 30 years had required probable cause and a warrant from a judge. One program, code-named PRISM, extracts content stored in user accounts at Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and five other leading Internet companies. Another, known inside the NSA as Upstream, intercepts data on the move as it crosses the U.S. junctions of global voice and data networks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...rc=al_national

[boutons_deux]

Been tellin' you naive Pollyannas.

It doesn't matter who or what party in the WH or in majority in Congress, the NSA/CIA/FBI/militarized-police planetary imperial security apparatus is beyond the reach of civilians.

[Clipper Nation]

Been tellin' you naive Pollyannas.

It doesn't matter who or what party in the WH or in majority in Congress, the NSA/CIA/FBI/militarized-police planetary imperial security apparatus is beyond the reach of civilians.

....until a "Repug" is elected, at which point it immediately becomes his fault

[boutons_deux]

but somehow, the NSA can't catch Americans evading taxes in offshore accounts.

[boutons_deux]

....until a "Repug" is elected, at which point it immediately becomes his fault

You Lie

and you dream if you think McLiar or Bishop Gecko would have reined in the NSA and friends.

[Winehole23]

Almost a year since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's leaked information was first revealed to the world, US officials today confirmed to CNN a new leaker is responsible for providing additional secret do ents to The Intercept. The Intercept is an investigative website cofounded by Glenn Greenwald, the reporter to whom Snowden entrusted the bulk of his do ents, and it has recently been publishing a series on the inner workings of the US government's terror watch list. Just today, The Intercept published a new article based on leaked information indicating that 40 percent of the 680,000 total people listed on the watch list have "no recognized terrorist group affiliation."

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/5/597...-the-intercept

[Winehole23]

The National Security Agency secretly tried to delete part of a public court transcript after believing one of its lawyers may have accidentally revealed classified information in a court case over alleged illegal surveillance.


Following a recent hearing in the ongoing Jewel v. NSA case, in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation is challenging NSA’s ability to surveil foreign citizen’s U.S.-based email and social media accounts, the government informed U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White it believed one of its attorneys mistakenly revealed classified information.


The government then requested that the select portion of the hearing’s public transcript be secretly deleted without alerting the public to the alteration. According to the EFF, the open courtroom case — which has been steadily picking up media coverage following NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s bulk surveillance revelations — was “widely covered by the press” and “even on the local TV news on two stations.”


“We rightly considered this an outrageous request and vigorously opposed it,” senior staff attorney for the EFF David Greene said in a statement. “The public has a First Amendment right not only to attend the hearing but to have an accurate transcript of it. Moreover, the federal law governing court reporting requires that ‘each session of the court’ be ‘recorded verbatim’ and that the transcript be certified by the court reporter as ‘a correct statement of the testimony taken and the proceedings had.’”


The government made no attempt to close the courtroom prior to the hearing, and one week after, sent a letter to Judge White asking to review the transcript, and at the request of NSA, delete any part of the transcript revealing information the signals intelligence agency deemed classified without alerting the public, plaintiffs, or their lawyers.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/08/ns...#ixzz3A8KQjYKm