Tag Archives: Western Intel

US and UK laws will entrench surveillance powers across the Atlantic

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“The draft Investigatory Powers bill has just been published in the UK while the US senate has voted through a proposed Cybesecurity Information Sharing Act.  Both nations are pursuing an aggressive path toward entrenching surveillance powers at the cost of citizens’ privacy. Both bills disregard privacy considerations: CISA through its power that subordinates other laws, the Investigatory Powers bill by expressly authorising bulk data collection with very little meaningful independent oversight.  It is hard to see how either of these bills is even a nod in the right direction.  They read like a confirmation that business as usual continues for the likes of the NSA and GCHQ.”

https://theconversation.com/proposed-us-and-uk-laws-will-entrench-surveillance-powers-across-the-atlantic-50425

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Federal Prosecution for Jesse Benton and a Free Pass for James Clapper

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“It’s okay for national-security state bureaucrats to lie to the elected representatives of the American people, even under oath. In the eyes of federal prosecutors, that’s just no big deal and certainly is not considered to be a criminal offense.  But when a private citizen supposedly lies to a federal bureaucrat who is investigating violations of ridiculous laws, rules, regulations, and edicts pertaining to ‘campaign finance laws’ — you know, the laws that keep Big Money out of presidential campaigns — well, then all hell breaks loose, with criminal indictments, prosecutions, and all sorts of pontifications about the importance of citizens telling the truth to federal bureaucrats.”

http://fff.org/2015/10/19/federal-prosecution-for-jesse-benton-and-a-free-pass-for-james-clapper/

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The NSA Playset: Espionage tools for the rest of us

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“When Der Spiegel and Jacob Appelbaum published leaked pages of the National Security Agency’s ANT Catalog—the collection of tools and software created for NSA’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division—it triggered shock, awe, and a range of other emotions around the world. Among some hardware hackers and security researchers, it triggered something else, too—a desire to replicate the capabilities of TAO’s toolbox to conduct research on how the same approaches might be used by other adversaries.  The NSA Playset project has done just that. The collection boasts over a dozen devices that put the power of the NSA’s TAO into the hands of researchers.”

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/the-nsa-playset-espionage-tools-for-the-rest-of-us/

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This Group May Stop the NSA From Tapping the Internet’s Backbone

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“This current iteration of the case, filed against the NSA itself, was thrown out by a lower court twice. The most recent rejection came earlier this year, when a California judge ruled that, in order to prove the case, the EFF would have to rely on classified material that cannot be made public, and therefore couldn’t be used in the case.  The EFF, however, says that because the NSA has essentially admitted much of what the case alleges, there’s no need to dip into those classified records.  ‘The biggest change is that the government has admitted a lot of things that it was previously saying were secret, and it’s a direct result of the Snowden documents,’ Andrew Crocker, EFF staff attorney, said.”

https://news.vice.com/article/this-group-may-stop-the-nsa-from-tapping-the-internets-backbone

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NSA Tries to Blame Privacy Advocates for Telephone Records Retention

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“USA Freedom requires the NSA to stop collecting our telephone records.  An open question when the law passed was what should happen to the mountain of records the NSA has already collected. Will the records be destroyed? Will the NSA keep them? Will it be able to keep using them?  Earlier this week, the NSA announced that it was going to move the stored records out of active use in November, with a three month period when its employees check them for ‘data integrity’ reasons. It noted, however, that it would not be destroying the records until resolution of the various court cases where the government is under a court order to preserve evidence.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/07/government-tries-blame-privacy-advocates-keeping-telephone-records

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Federal Reserve Spies on France

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“New documents from WikiLeaks show the National Security Agency spies on French companies as well as its government. That’s not especially surprising. What is surprising is seeing the Federal Reserve Board on the list of ‘supported elements’ for whom the NSA spied. We’ve always known the Fed had its nose in every economic nook and cranny. Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, we have proof. You can view the secret document online. What you will see is a standing topic list, dating back to 2002, on which the NSA collects information for further analysis. NSA’s ‘customer’ list includes not only the Fed but also the Commerce Department, Treasury Department and U.S. Trade Representative.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/36414/Federal-Reserve-Spies-on-France/

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It Was the First Time the CIA Overthrew a Government…

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“In 1979, 26 years after Operation Ajax, a popular uprising overthrew the Shah. A power struggle ensued, and Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamist forces prevailed. The Islamic Republic of Iran was born. This time, it was an anti-American government that came to power. Decades of animosity followed, and it continues to this day.  It’s unthinkable to most that the Islamic Republic of Iran could offer any sort of investment opportunity. Many find the mere mention of the country distasteful.  There’s another country that most would have considered unthinkable to invest in at one time. Many got hot under the collar just at the mention of its name too: the People’s Republic of China.”

http://www.internationalman.com/articles/it-was-the-first-time-the-cia-overthrew-a-government

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Brazil Builds Internet Cable To Portugal To Avoid NSA Surveillance [2014]

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“Brazil is building a cable across the Atlantic to escape the reach of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The move is one of many ways the Brazilian government is breaking ties with American technology companies — but it won’t come cheap.  The 3,500-mile fiber-optic cable will stretch from Fortaleza to Portugal, with an estimated cost of $185 million, Bloomberg reported.  Of course, none of this will go to American vendors.  Last year, Edward Snowden leaked documents that showed the NSA was accessing personal information of Brazilian citizens, including listening to phone calls of President Dilma Rousseff, its embassies and the state-owned oil company Petrobras.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/brazil-builds-internet-cable-portugal-avoid-nsa-surveillance-1717417

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NSA: Visualize Everything

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“Do you remember those ‘Visualize World Peace’ bumper stickers? They gave the National Security Agency an idea, apparently. Now the agency that hears and reads everything wants to see everything, too. This is interesting in several ways. For one, it shows the tendency of any bureaucracy to expand however possible. The U.S. Department of Defense already has two other entities whose mission is to ‘create a much broader picture’ like Admiral Rogers wants. Why the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency would need the NSA’s help is unclear.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/36385/NSA-Visualize-Everything/

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NSA conducts mass surveillance of the US internet to find cyberattacks

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“According to the new documents, the scanning is enabled by broad legal powers, granted by the Department of Justice and FISA court in 2012. An initial Justice Department order (interpreting Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act) authorized the NSA to target data based on specific IP addresses or threat signatures that were linked to foreign nations. In addition to its surveillance operations, the NSA is tasked with defending official US networks from digital intrusions, a task that’s grown increasingly difficult as states like China have grown more sophisticated.  But according to the documents, limiting the scans to foreign states was too restrictive for the NSA.”

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/4/8729155/snowden-nsa-internet-cyber-surveillance-cyberattack

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