Category: Civil Liberties
3 NSA Veterans Speak Out On Whistle-Blower: We Told You So
In a roundtable discussion, a trio of former National Security Agency whistle-blowers tell USA TODAY that Edward Snowden succeeded where they failed.
When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government’s collection of Americans’ phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a sigh of relief.
Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe belong to a select fraternity: the NSA officials who paved the way.
For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens. They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data-collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. When they became convinced that fundamental constitutional rights were being violated, they complained first to their superiors, then to federal investigators, congressional oversight committees and, finally, to the news media.”
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Spying On Americans Before 9/11: NSA Built Back Door In All Windows Software By 1999
” In researching the stunning pervasiveness of spying by the government (it’s much more wide spread than you’ve heard even now), we ran across the fact that the FBI wants software programmers to install a backdoor in all software.
Digging a little further, we found a 1999 article by leading European computer publication Heise which noted that the NSA had already built a backdoor into all Windows software:
A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors). The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had built an NSA “help information”trapdoor into its Notes system, and that security functions on other software systems had been deliberately crippled.
The first discovery of the new NSA access system was made two years ago by British researcher Dr Nicko van Someren [an expert in computer security]. But it was only a few weeks ago when a second researcher rediscovered the access system. With it, he found the evidence linking it to NSA.”
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Big Politically Correct Brother
” A few weeks after 9/11, when government was hastily retooling its 1970s hijacking procedures for the new century, I wrote a column for the National Post of Canada and various other publications that, if you’re so interested, is preserved in my anthology The Face of the Tiger. It began by noting the observation of President Bush’s transportation secretary, Norman Mineta, that if “a 70-year-old white woman from Vero Beach, Florida” and “a Muslim young man” were in line to board a flight, he hoped there would be no difference in the scrutiny to which each would be subjected. The TSA was then barely a twinkle in Norm’s eye, and in that long-ago primitive era it would have seemed absurd to people that one day in America it would be entirely routine for wheelchair-bound nonagenarians to remove leg braces before boarding a plane or for kindergartners to stand patiently as three middle-aged latex-gloved officials poke around their genitals. Back then, the idea that everybody is a suspect still seemed slightly crazy. As I wrote in my column, “I’d love to see Norm get his own cop show:
“Captain Mineta, the witness says the serial rapist’s about 5′10″ with a thin mustache and a scar down his right cheek.”
“Okay, Sergeant, I want you to pull everyone in.”
“Pardon me?”
“Everyone. Men, women, children. We’ll start in the Bronx and work our way through to Staten Island. What matters here is that we not appear to be looking for people who appear to look like the appearance of the people we’re looking for. There are eight million stories in the Naked City, and I want to hear all of them.”
A decade on, it would be asking too much for the new Norm to be confined to the airport terminal. There are 300 million stories in the Naked Republic, and the NSA hears all of them, 24/7. Even in the wake of a four-figure death toll, with the burial pit still smoking, the formal, visible state could not be honest about the very particular threat it faced, and so in the shadows the unseen state grew remorselessly, the blades of the harvester whirring endlessly but, don’t worry, only for “metadata.”
As I wrote in National Review in November 2001, “The bigger you make the government, the more you entrust to it, the more powers you give it to nose around the citizenry’s bank accounts, and phone calls, and e-mails, and favorite Internet porn sites, the more you’ll enfeeble it with the siren song of the soft target. The Mounties will no longer get their man, they’ll get you instead. Frankly, it’s a lot easier.” As the IRS scandal reminds us, you have to have a touchingly naïve view of government to believe that the 99.9999 percent of “metadata” entirely irrelevant to terrorism will not be put to some use, sooner or later.”
As Usual Steyn Is Required Reading
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As Public Concerns Grow, Congress Spooked Over Spying
” The American people are growing increasingly concerned about reports of domestic spying. And Congress isn’t sure how to respond.
The public’s views have been evolving over the past week and a half. When news broke earlier this month that the National Security Agency could tap data from phone and Internet companies, most people accepted the tradeoff between security and privacy. Members of Congress routinely defended the programs.
Not anymore. By week’s end, polls suggested a groundswell of concern and lawmakers were hearing from constituents. Conversations at the Capitol had a new hue: Sure, the government says it has safeguards in place so it won’t listen to my calls and read my emails – but can it ever really control some rogue operator? And where is all that data? Who’s in charge?“
This is what happens when the MSM finally starts doing it’s job . People , even the “low info” people , become informed about the abuses being heaped upon them by a Statist government in the name of “national security” and , low and behold , they let their representatives have an earful . Good for them and good for US . We say Bring It On …
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Opening Statement June 15, 2013
Published on Jun 15, 2013
” Judge Jeanine Pirro – The Real Losers Of Washington DC! – Opening Statement – 6-15-2013″
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Obama Continues War On Free Speech
” The Obama Administration has declared war on the First Amendment — free speech. Groups that try to educate Americans about the Constitution have been put through the IRS wringer. The Justice Department scoured the emails and tracked the whereabouts of a television news reporter. These are just a couple of cases in which the Obama Administration turned its back on the First Amendment, and its protection of freedom of speech and the free exercise of one’s deeply held beliefs.
Furthermore, a number of military members have recently disclosed an alarming rise in First Amendment violations against military chaplains and members.
For example, one service member received a severe reprimand from his commanding officer for respectfully expressing his faith’s religious position in a personal religious blog. An Air Force officer was told that he could not keep a Bible on his desk because it might offend someone. And, an Army training presentation labeled Evangelical Christianity as an example of religious extremism, equating it to such organizations as the KKK and al-Qaeda. “
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FBI Hasn’t Contacted A Single Tea Party Group In IRS Probe, Groups Say
” There is no evidence that the FBI has contacted a single tea party group in its criminal investigation of the Internal Revenue Service, according to the groups the IRS abused.
“We have not been contacted by any federal investigative agency and, to date, none of our clients have been contacted or interviewed by the FBI,” Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice told The Daily Caller on Thursday. The ACLJ has filed suit against the IRS on behalf of 25 conservative groups, with additional groups being added in the next couple weeks, according to a spokesman.
“I have been very surprised that I have not heard from anybody and frankly, none of my clients have. I talk to other tea party leaders on a regular basis,” said Cleta Mitchell, the lawyer largely credited with pushing the IRS abuses to the forefront.”
Related articles
- COVERUP EXPOSED: FBI Hasn’t Contacted A Single Tea Party Group In Alleged IRS Probe (patdollard.com)
- Outrageous!… FBI Has Not Contacted a Single Tea Party Group in IRS Investigation (thegatewaypundit.com)
- Targeted Tea Party Groups: The FBI Hasn’t Contacted Us In Its So-Called Investigation of the IRS (minx.cc)
- FBI hasn’t contacted a single tea party group in IRS probe (fireandreamitchell.com)
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Phones Leave A Telltale Trail
” The NSA, through secret court orders served to U.S. telecommunications firms, scoops up metadata relating to almost all calls made into and within the U.S., which it can later query as part of a terror investigation. U.S. officials say that kind of work, in concert with other techniques, has helped thwart “dozens” of terrorist plots in the U.S. and overseas. Critics charge it represents an invasion of privacy.
The typical smartphone user can give off a total of nearly 100 pieces of highly technical data through calls, texts and other activities, according to research by Tracy Ann Kosa, a digital-privacy expert at the University of Ontario. This information includes the time that phones make contact with cellphone towers, the direction of the tower with respect to the phone and the signal strength at the time.
Ms. Kosa said much of the data is “insignificant on its own.” But “every little piece counts,” she said. “Think of it like footsteps—or calories.” “
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Rand Paul Sues Government Over NSA Spying On Americans
” The NSA is violating the Constitution by compiling the private phone records of Americans not accused of a crime. Rand Paul is standing up and saying that’s unacceptable.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. Rand Paul held a press conference today to announce his intent to pursue legal action against the National Security Agency’s vast overreach of power as it relates to telecommunication privacy and government surveillance. Various legal options are currently being explored and legal action will be announced in the next few weeks.”
At least we have a few friends of the Constitution left in Washington . Very few , admittedly , but a few nevertheless .
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14-Year-Old At The Center Of “NRA T-Shirt Controversy” Now Facing Possibility Of 1 Year In Jail
” Suspended and arrested after refusing to change his NRA shirt. Today, 14-year-old Jared Marcum appeared before a judge and was officially charged with obstructing an officer.A $500 fine and up to a year in jail, that’s the penalty that Jared could face, now that a judge has allowed the prosecution to move forward with it’s obstructing an officer charge against him.“Me, I’m more of a fighter and so is Jared and eventually we’re going to get through this,” Jared’s father Allen Lardieri said. ”I don’t think it should have ever gotten this far.”The Logan County Police Department initially claimed that the at-the-time 8th grade Logan Middle School student was arrested for disturbing the education process, obstructing an officer and Lardieri says that officers even went as far as threatening to charge Jared with making terroristic threats.”
Related articles
- 8th Grader Arrested, Suspended For T-Shirt (utahccwcarry.com)
- After Student is Suspended and Arrested for Wearing NRA “Protect Your Rights” Shirt,100 Students Wear Shirt to School (fromthetrenchesworldreport.com)
- After Student is Suspended and Arrested for Wearing NRA “Protect Your Rights” Shirt,100 Students Wear Shirt to School (philosophers-stone.co.uk)
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Or At Least Make It More Difficult
Assuming that your data is being watched, what might you do to hide it?
First, consider not putting so much stuff out there in the first place. Wuergler devised a program he calls Stalker that can siphon off nearly all of your digital information to put together an amazingly complete portrait of your life and pretty much find out where you are at all times. Use Facebook if you must, but realize you’re making it easy for the government to track and find you when they choose to do so.
A second step toward increased privacy is to use a browser like DuckDuckGo, which does not collect the sort of information—say, your IP address—that can identify you with your Internet searches. Thus, if the government bangs on their doors to find out what you’ve been up to, DuckDuckGo has nothing to hand over. I have decided to make DuckDuckGo my default for general browsing, turning to Google only for items such as breaking news and scholarly articles. (Presumably, the NSA would be able to tap into my searches on DuckDuckGo in real time.)
Third, TOR offers free software and a network of relays that can shield your location from prying eyes. TOR operates by bouncing your emails and files around the Internet through encrypted relays. Anyone intercepting your message once it exits a TOR relay cannot trace it back to your computer and your physical location. TOR is used by dissidents and journalists around the world. On the downside, in my experience it operates more slowly than, say, Google.”
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CBS Confirms Reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s Computer Breached
” CBS News said Friday it has confirmed that a computer used by one of its Washington reporters, Sharyl Attkisson, was breached by an unknown intruder and that the hack appeared to be “sophisticated.”
The intrusions were detected in December, when Attkisson was reporting almost exclusively on the government’s response to the terrorist attacks on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. The attack on Sept. 11, 2012, killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens. Attkisson has previously investigated the Department of Justice’s gun-tracking operation known as “Fast and Furious.”
It added, “Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and [removal] of data. This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.” “
Since Ms Attkisson has been the leader in reporting on both Fast & Furious and Benghazi the list of possible suspects would seem to be a short one . Who would have the ability to mount “sophisticated” attacks and the desire to “remove data” pertaining to two prominent administration scandals ?
Related articles
- Confirmed: Sharyl Attkisson’s Computer Was Compromised (patterico.com)
- Who’s Spying on CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson? (nationalreview.com)
- Sharyl Attkisson: CBS Investigation Reveals ‘Sophisticated’ Methods Used To Compromise Her Computers (mediaite.com)
- CBS News confirms multiple breaches of Benghazi Critic Sharyl Attkisson’s computer… (redflagnews.com)
- CBS Reporter Who Pursued Benghazi Scandal Finds Personal Computer was Hacked (shepherdspiehole.typepad.com)
- Sharyl Attkisson: CBS confirmed my computer was hacked ‘on multiple occasions’ (twitchy.com)
- Breaking: Sharyl Attkisson tweets reveal Obama admin lies; US Special Forces stopped from going to Benghazi; Update: ‘Might have saved American lives’ (twitchy.com)
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NSA Will Declassify Some Information On Surveillance Program
” National Security Agency’s collection of phone and email data so they can show Americans it has helped stop terrorism.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, said Thursday he will put forward information as soon as next week, “that I think will allow the American public to better understand,” the NSA surveillance, which was leaked last week by a government contractor.
Rogers made the pledge after the head of the National Security Agency told lawmakers at a closed-door hearing that the government is not eavesdropping on America’s phone calls or reading their emails.”
The snooping did a great job in Boston and Ft Hood .
” Alexander said the NSA activities follow a strict “compliance regime” and are overseen by Congress, the Obama administration and the courts.”
That’s confidence inspiring … the foxes minding the hen house . It’s a shame that all three branches of government have become so discredited through partisanship and corruption that the people can only view them all as adversaries as opposed to watchdogs .
Related articles
- Did The NSA Surveillance Program Twart Terrorist Attacks? (warnewsupdates.blogspot.com)
- Feinstein will seek limits on who can see NSA spy data (modbee.com)
- Republican Lawmaker: Conservatives Concerned About NSA Snooping Are Acting Like Michael Moore (personalliberty.com)
- US to declassify secret surveillance documents after uproar (telegraph.co.uk)
- We are not spying on you but we are: Parts of NSA’s PRISM program declassified (sott.net)
- The NSA/Corporate Snooping Cooperative (youviewed.com)
- Former NSA Whistleblower Sheds Light on the Science of Surveillance [Q&A] (scientificamerican.com)
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70 Congressional Republicans Revolt And Scare John Boehner Straight On Illegal Immigration
” Between the Democrats in the Senate who understand that amnesty means a permanent majority for their side and Marco Rubio choosing to sell his soul to help the Left put a path to citizenship in place, the Gang of 8′s immigration bill always looked like a good bet to pass the Senate. In fact, the talk was that the pro-amnesty side wanted to get 70 votes to put pressure on the House Republicans to vote for the bill. Conceivably, given that Republicans have proven that they deserve the stupid party moniker again and again, that could still happen.”
As horrid and repugnant as the recently revealed snooping scandals are , we must not lose sight of the future while fixated on the past . If this amnesty bill is allowed to become law all the snooping in the world isn’t going to matter a tinker’s damn . The democrats will have enacted a “permanent majority” bill and will be able to freeze out us liberty-lovers for generations to come … the death of America as we know it .
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Guess What Obama’s NSA Snooping Excludes: Mosques
” Now this makes perfect sense doesn’t it? Obama’s NSA snooping exempts one part of America from their spying. Muslim mosques. You couldn’t make this crap up if you tried. Mosques being off limits by the NSA isn’t something that was started in the Bush administration either. Exempting Mosques from the NSA began in October 2011 and they are off-limits to FBI agents. Kind of defeats the purpose of ‘protecting America’ by snooping when 95% of terrorism in this country is from Muslims.
Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.
Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.”
Related articles
- Fun Fact Of The Day: Mosque’s Are Off-Limits To Obama’s Snooping… (redflagnews.com)
- Obama’s snooping excludes mosques (ntrcsr7.wordpress.com)
- Guess what Obama’s NSA snooping excludes: Mosques (prepareforthelamb.wordpress.com)
- Obama administration spying on your phone calls and maybe email, but Mosques are still off limit… (bluegrasspundit.com)
- Obama’s Snooping Excludes Mosques, Missed Boston Bombers (iowntheworld.com)
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The Daily Show Hits Washington Scandals Harder Than News Media
” The Daily Show’s John Oliver sat in for Jon Stewart, who is apparently pregnant and gone for the summer, and gave a lengthy monologue about the whistleblower stories that was simply hilarious.”
” It’s pretty sad when a “comedy” show hits a major news story harder than the mainstream media, including Fox News.”
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UCLA Constitutional Law Professor: Gun Control Can’t Stop A ‘Madman’
” Not everyone in Los Angeles, California, is brain dead when it comes to the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. Trust me. Not only do I live in sunny LA, but UCLA Constitutional Law Professor Adam Winkler also resides in the area.
Winkler, as some of you may know, is the author of the highly touted, “Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” a book that examines the debate over gun control in a reasonable and unbiased manner.
Well, on the heels of a mass shooting near Santa Monica College this past Friday that left five people dead, including the gunman, and at least five people injured, local pundits, lawmakers and pro-gun control activists were trumpeting for tighter restrictions on gun ownership in a place that already has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation.
By their logic, the deranged shooter with a history of mental illness and an interest in bomb making, 23-year-old John Zawahiri, who carried an AR-15 and .44 revolver along with 1,300 rounds of ammo, most of which was loaded in 30-round magazines, might have been stopped if their were stricter gun laws in place.”
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