Tag Archive: National Security Agency


‘Dead For Now:’ CISPA Halted In The Senate

 

 

 

 

” Privacy advocates can breathe a sigh of relief as the controversial US Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) appears to be all but dead in the water, with all signs pointing to it being shelved by the Senate.

The bill, which was purportedly designed to allow the federal government to share private user information with corporations in situations of a suspected cyber threat, was the source of widespread ire from privacy advocates.

According to US News & World Report, a representative of the Senate committee stated that, though CISPA seems to be dead for the time being, issues and key provisions from that bill may still re-emerge.

I think it’s dead for now,” says Michelle Richardson, legislative council with the ACLU. “CISPA is too controversial, it’s too expansive, it’s just not the same sort of program contemplated by the Senate last year. We’re pleased to hear the Senate will probably pick up where it left off last year,” she told US News.

According to the EFF, CISPA represents a “dangerous” level of access to private information, and would allow the National Security Agency to obtain online communications data without a warrant.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Big Companies To Partner With Homeland Security To Scan Some Private Emails/Web Traffic

 

 

” It is nice to know that our privacy is being compromised as part of a massive public/private partnership. The surveillance state just took a big step forward, officially.

We are told that this information will only be used in the most dire of circumstances, but history has shown us that the government becomes less concerned about “circumstances” the longer it has the technology. This should concern everyone. That this had to be done via the executive branch because of popular resistance should concern everyone. That it was done despite this resistance should concern everyone.

(From NBC News)

Under last month’s White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the top threat to the country.

The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cyber security providers that have employees holding security clearances, government and industry officials said. Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program.”

 

 

 

Teens Prepare For Cyberwar

” Computer-savvy teens are putting down their game controllers — at least temporarily — for code writing and virus-sweeping. Call it “Red Dawn: Part Deux: Teen Cyber-Commandos.”

At events like the CyberLympics, CyberPatriot contest or just-announced “Toaster Wars,” sponsored by the National Security Agency, high school geek squads are competing to see who does the best job at preventing unauthorized computer intrusions.

This growing interest in cyberdefense comes at a time when the Pentagon officials are warning against damaging computer attacks from China and other nations, while stoking concerns that the United States education system hasn’t trained enough cyber-warriors to protect either military or civilian computer systems.

While the students are taught advanced computer skills, they also receive training in computer ethics, according to Scott Kennedy, assistant vice president and principal systems engineering manager at SAIC, a defense contractor and cybersecurity provider based in Northern Virginia. In fact, some students have been kicked out for getting into other team’s computers, or issuing denial of service attacks.”

Censorship In America: 34 Civil Liberties Groups Speak Out Against CISPA In Lead Up To Hearings

 

 

 

” On Monday, EFF and over 30 other Internet rights organizations sent a letter to members of Congress demanding they vote no on the “cybersecurity” bill known as CISPA. The letter starts off a week in which Congress will hold three different hearings about CISPA and computer and network security. In addition to the letter, each hearing will provide opportunity to voice many of the bill’s problems. We encourage you to join the fight and tell your Representative to say no to CISPA.

 

The first hearing this week will focus on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) role in cybersecurity. In the past couple of years there has been a turf battle over whether the National Security Agency (NSA) or DHS should run the nation’s Internet and network security. Even after NSA head General Keith Alexander declared that civilian agencies should be in charge, the House didn’t get the message. The letter we sent highlights a loophole in CISPA allowing companies to bypass privacy laws and share potentially personal information directly with the NSA. We agree with General Alexander. Civilian control of our domestic cybersecurity is a necessity. “

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spy Bases: 9 Secretive HQs of the World’s Intelligence Agencies

United States: National Security Agency

 

 

” There are clear views of the National Security Agency’s headquarters off the Patuxent Freeway, just skirting Fort Meade, Maryland, about 15 miles southwest of Baltimore. But we wouldn’t advise getting any closer, as the NSA is the highly secretive agency responsible for the U.S. government’s codebreaking and collecting communications from around the world. The NSA’s headquarters also fits the part, rising blank and expressionless above a desert of parking lots. Completed in 1986, it resembles a collection of stubby, black, reflective monoliths like from 2001: A Space Odyssey. And according to the Center for Land Use Interpretation, the complex has an estimated 10 acres of underground space.

But like the CIA during the Cold War, the NSA in recent years has outgrown its own building. Fort Meade altogether has grown extremely rapidly as defense agencies relocate there and the NSA boosts its Cyber Command headquarters. Defense and government contractors now have offices surrounding the place, and contract and government jobs have surged, largely due to growth at the base more generally, and partly because of growth at the NSA. The Baltimore Business Journal reported that the base is expected to add an eye-popping 42,500 jobs by the end of the decade. The Defense Department even paved over part of the base’s golf course for the headquarters of the Defense Media Activity organization, the Pentagon’s media wing. Hopefully the Pentagon and the NSA will include a lot more parking.”

US Senate Approves FISA Warrantless Wiretapping Extension

 

 

 

 

“ Washington - The Senate has voted to reauthorize a controversial amendment that allows US intelligence agencies to wiretap communications without warrants.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 was passed to allow the wiretapping of many US phone conversations and electronic communications and to grant retroactive immunity to Bush administration officials and telecom corporations for illegal wiretapping of domestic communications. FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allows the NSA and other US intelligence agencies to wiretap conversations in which at least one of the parties is a foreign citizen without first obtaining a warrant. “

Despite Concerns By Fellow Democrats And Civil Libertarians, The Senator Says There’s Ample Oversight On Spying

Ample Oversight … Where have we heard that before ? Oh yeah . The Stimulus , Fannie Mae , Freddie Mac , Pigford , Gunwalker , Benghazi , Solyndra , need we go on ? Charlie Rangel , Maxine Waters , William Jefferson , Domestic Drones , TSA ?  Secret Service , GSA ?

” However, outgoing chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Dianne Feinsten, D.-Calif., defended the surveillance practices permitted under FISA’s current provisions. “I don’t think there’s any program that has more vigorous oversight,” she said in response to Wyden Thursday. Feinstein said that in regards to stopping domestic terrorist attacks in recent years, the surveillance program “has worked,” noting that some of the 100 arrests made over the past four years to prevent attacks on U.S. soil have been made based on intelligence gleaned under FISA.

According to the Guardian, “National Security Agency whistleblower Bill Binney has estimated that the agency has ‘assembled’ 20 trillion transactions between U.S. citizens.”

As Wyden put it Thursday, I think, when you talk about oversight, and you can’t even get a rough estimate of how many law-abiding Americans had their communications swept up by this law … the idea of robust oversight, really ought to be called toothless oversight if you don’t have that kind of information.”

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