John Key says Edward Snowden ‘may well be right’ about NSA spying on NZ

New Zealand prime minister refuses to rule out that Kiwi metadata is being intercepted by American intelligence

The claim by Edward Snowden that New Zealanders’ internet traffic is accessible through a NSA intelligence database “may well be right”, the country’s prime minister, John Key, has acknowledged.

Key refused on Wednesday to rule out that New Zealanders’ metadata was being intercepted by American intelligence, telling local media: “I don’t run the NSA any more than I run any other foreign intelligence agency or any other country”.

But he denied that agents from the country’s spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), were helping feed mass Kiwi metadata into the vast and controversial database known as XKeyscore.

Documents obtained by Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, published on Monday, revealed that the New Zealand government worked throughout 2012 and 2013 to implement a domestic mass surveillance program.

Codenamed Speargun, the program involved installing “cable access” equipment to monitor the Southern Cross cable, which carries most of New Zealand’s internet traffic to the world.

Snowden wrote an accompanying post to the documents warning Kiwis that he had been able to search their intercepted metadata while an analyst with the NSA. “If you live in New Zealand, you are being watched,” he said.

Key has acknowledged the existence of Speargun, but said he raised concerns it was targeted too broadly and put a stop to its rollout in March 2013.

Read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/17/john-key-says-edward-snowden-may-well-be-right-about-nsa-spying-on-nz

 

In New Video, Congressman Explains Why His Fellow Lawmakers Couldn’t Be Trusted with NSA Oversight

Congressmen who asked about oversight of NSA mass surveillance and domestic spying in 2013 could have “compromise[d] security” and were denied the records they sought because of concerns they lacked formal government security clearance, a former member of the House Intelligence Committee says in a newly-released video.

The footage, from an August 29, 2013 town hall meeting, sheds new light on why lawmakers were denied key rulings and reports from the secret courts overseeing the National Security Agency — even as the Obama administration and intelligence officials claimed that all NSA programs were subject to strict congressional oversight and therefore could be held accountable.

In the video, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., then a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, discusses why Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., and Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., should not and did not receive information they sought from the committee. The committee had previously declined to explain why the information was withheld, going so far as to tell Grayson that even its discussion of his request was classified. Because the committee, like its Senate counterpart, tends to be particularly sympathetic to the intelligence community, getting information to non-committee-members like Grayson and Griffith is potentially crucial to reforming U.S. spy agencies. And in late 2013, following revelations of mass surveillance by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, there were any number of reform bills pending.

At the time, President Obama defended bulk collection of telephone metadata, claiming in a press conference that “these programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate. And if there are Members of Congress who feel differently, then they should speak up.”

Read more @ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/03/property-insurance-companies-flooded-dark-money-groups-tied-gop-cash/

 

When Will the NSA Stop Spying on Innocent Americans?

The law cited as the justification for the phone dragnet will expire on June 1 unless Congress acts to extend it.

Unless Congress acts, Americans will soon benefit from one of the Patriot Act's most important safeguards against abuse: Language in Section 215 of the law is scheduled to expire in June, depriving the FBI and NSA of a provision they've used to justify monitoring the phone calls of tens of millions of innocents (though a primary author of the law insists that it grants no such authority). If you've used a landline to call an abortion clinic, a gun store, a suicide hotline, a therapist, an oncologist, a phone sex operator, an investigative journalist, or a union organizer, odds are the government has logged a record of the call. If your Congressional representative has a spouse or child who has made an embarrassing phone call, the executive branch may well possess the ability to document it, though government apologists insist that they'd never do so and are strangely confident that future governments composed of unknown people won't either.

Americans know about this intrusive spying on innocents thanks to Edward Snowden, the Booz Allen Hamilton contractor whose leaks revealed what national security officials hid even when doing so required lying in sworn testimony. In the aftermath of Snowden's leaks, the NSA argued that the phone dragnet is an important counterterrorism tool subject to careful safeguards against abuse. Keith Alexander went so far as to insist that it helped foil multiple terror plots.

Read more @ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/when-will-the-nsa-stop-spying-on-the-communications-of-innocent-americans/389375/

 

US to stop collecting phone metadata if Congress lets law expire

Read more @ http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/us-to-stop-collecting-phone-metadata-if-congress-lets-law-expire-20150324-1m60z7.html

 

How To Make A Secret Phone Call

To show how hard phone privacy can be, one artist examined the CIA, consulted hackers, and went far off the map (with a stop at Rite Aid).

There's a lot you can find in the depths of the dark web, but in 2013, photographer and artist Curtis Wallen managed to buy the ingredients of a new identity. After purchasing a Chromebook with cash, Wallen used Tor, virtual marketplaces, and a bitcoin wallet to purchase a fake driver's license, insurance card, social security number, and cable bill, among other identifying documents. Wallen saw his new identity, Aaron Brown, as more than just art: Brown was a political statement on the techno-surveillance age.

"I started looking into details on cell phone surveillance while I was working on Aaron Brown," Wallen said. "It opened my eyes to how insidious these little things really are."

The cover of Wallen's handbook, presented inside a custom CIA-style "burn bag."

With his latest project, "Proposition For An On Demand Clandestine Communication Network," (PropCom) Wallen doubles down on this anti-surveillance modus operandi. Step-by-step, Wallen instructs people in the laborious—and damned near impossible—art of ducking cell phone surveillance.

This time, Wallen looked elsewhere for inspiration: Namely, the CIA's faulty cell phone tradecraft used in the 2005 extraordinary rendition of Hassan Mustafa Osama in Italy, and in their surveillance of Lebanese Hezbollah. In both cases, the CIA operatives’ closed cell phone networks were undone when Italian authorities and Hezbollah acquired phone metadata.

Learning from these operational failures, Wallen conjured a clandestine cell phone network that could be used on demand. "I was interested in looking at this system from different angles," he says, "and finding ways where I could subvert it and use certain aspects of it against itself."

Read more @ http://www.fastcompany.com/3044637/secret-phone-network

 

Mozilla warns against data-storage rules in NSA reform

Mozilla on Friday warned against a government policy that could require phone companies to hold on to customer data longer than their business purposes require. 

Advocates for National Security Agency reform have cautioned against such a measure for the past year. Lawmakers are considering ending the government’s bulk collection of U.S. phone records in exchange for a system where officials could search records stored with the private companies themselves with approval from the surveillance court. 

The data retention provision did not make it into reform bills last year, including one in the Senate that narrowly failed on a procedural vote. Mozilla’s director of public policy, Chris Riley, wants it to stay that way.

“It is an unnecessary, and harmful, posture for any democratic government to take. Data retention mandates are not a missing piece of the long-term surveillance ecosystem; they are a bridge too far,” he wrote in a blog post. Riley asserted that kind of deal would amount to “misguided pragmatism.”

He said such “total after the fact information awareness” is what the public and companies have rallied against since the revelations from Edward Snowden about the extent of U.S. surveillance practices.

Riley pointed to comments made by Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper last year, when they wrote that phone companies’ “existing practices in retaining metadata” would suffice.

With the increasing number of cyberattacks in the news, Riley also cautioned that forcing companies to hold onto data longer than they need poses a security risk.

“In addition to making troves of private user information vulnerable to malicious actors, requiring companies to hold user data longer than necessary for business purposes would create additional liability and risk,” he wrote. 

Phone companies currently vary in how long they retain users' metadata, which includes phone numbers, call times and duration but not the content of calls. The government is currently limited to storing the information it collects in bulk to five years.  

Read more @ http://thehill.com/policy/technology/237894-mozilla-warns-against-data-retention-requirement-in-nsa-reform

 

MP Rathgeber wants tougher oversight of electronic spy agency

Canada’s system of watching the watchers needs better vision, says maverick MP Brent Rathgeber.

The Independent member representing Edmonton-St. Albert is to table a private member’s bill after the Easter parliamentary break calling on government to scrap the federal watchdog office that monitors the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the country’s top-secret electronic spy agency.

“I understand the dangers that are in this world and I understand that the state has to do this type of surveillance to keep its citizens safe. I don’t take issue with that,” Rathgeber said in an interview.

“What I take issue with is going outside of (legal) parameters if you’re the CSE.”

The Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner is responsible for seeing that the CSE doesn’t break the law, including violating Canadians’ privacy, as it vacuums electronic signals from around Canada and the globe for intelligence on the plans and activities of Canada’s adversaries. It is headed by a former judge, supported by 11 researchers and other staff and has a $2-million annual budget.

That’s “woefully inadequate,” said Rathgeber.

In a planning document released this past week, the commissioner’s office said it is doing an efficient and effective job, but without more funding is concerned it may fall behind as the CSE evolves and expands.

Read more @ http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/mp-rathgeber-wants-tougher-oversight-of-electronic-spy-agency

 

The Dutch “Surveillance Kings of Europe” Are About to Get Even Nosier

The Netherlands is considering a new law that would give its spooks unprecedented access to global data, including yours and mine.

AMSTERDAM — When the exiled American whistleblower Edward Snowden dubbed the Dutch “the Surveillance Kings of Europe” earlier this year, he attracted little attention outside The Netherlands. But he was talking about an issue with global implications, not least for the United States.

Snowden, now resident in Russia (and largely silent about its pervasive surveillance activities) told “Nieuwsuur,” a Dutch television news program, that the U.S. National Security Agency and its partners in Europe were encouraging the Dutch intelligence services to join the FVEY or “Five Eyes.” 

These Anglophone countries—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States—share electronic surveillance in its many forms under a  multilateral treaty dating back to the early days of the Cold War. (The term Five Eyes comes from the classification heading “SECRET—AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US EYES ONLY.”) And their goal, Snowden claimed, is to “create a surveillance super-state that shares all of its information.”

Snowden suggested The Netherlands is being bullied into an unhealthy alliance with the Five Eyes.  But if Dutch Minister of Interior Ronald Plasterk is worried about that, it certainly doesn’t show.

Indeed, those in charge of the Dutch intelligence services seem positively enthusiastic about the possibility they could play surveillance with the big boys and they get rather resentful when some of their fellow Europeans try to rein them in. (The Dutch are already part of a second-tier agreement called the Nine Eyes, with the “Anglo-Saxons” plus Denmark, France, and Norway, and a third-tier one called the Fourteen Eyes that adds Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Sweden. But those a junior varsities.)

In a memorandum addressed to the Dutch parliament last month, Plasterk registered his strong opposition to proposals for what is called the European Intelligence Codex, an initiative from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that insists current intelligence practices “endanger fundamental human rights” (PDF). The codex is meant to help protect personal data Europe-wide.

Read more @ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/03/the-dutch-surveillance-kings-of-europe-are-about-to-get-even-nosier.html

 

Lawmakers Consider Bill That Could Hinder NSA Operations in Maine

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Maine Fourth Amendment Protection Act, a bill introduced by freshman Senator Eric Brakey (R-Androscoggin).

The bill’s purpose is to withhold material support or other assistance to a federal agency, specifically the National Security Administration, in its efforts “in the collection or use of a person’s electronic data or metadata” without informed consent, a warrant, or a legally recognized exemption.

In the 126th Legislature, lawmakers passed several bills that would protect Mainers’ privacy.  LD 1377 prevented state agencies from obtaining cell phone records without a warrant, and LD 415, which the legislature passed over the governor’s veto, prevented state agencies from collecting GPS data from phones without a warrant.

The bills were meant as a countermeasure to the NSA’s controversial mass data collection activities, which first came to light due to Edward Snowden’s revelations.  And while the laws protected Mainers’ data from state agencies, there was a loophole.

State law does not prevent the NSA from collecting Mainers’ cell phone data without a warrant.  Therefore, state agencies could essentially outsource their work to the NSA, according to Brakey, with the federal government conducting warrantless data collection and passing that information along to state agencies.

“What [the Maine Fourth Amendment Protection Act] does is it closes that loophole, and it says that our state agencies, and local agencies, cannot accept or enable the federal government when it’s doing these illegal searches and seizures,” said Brakey in an interview.  “It would prohibit our state and local agencies from accepting and using that data for any purposes.”

Read more @  http://www.themainewire.com/2015/04/lawmakers-bill-hinder-nsa-operations-maine/

 

Whistleblower's legacy: President reforms key surveillance law; Europe questions safe harbor regime

Nearly two years ago, Edward Snowden, a contractor working with the U.S. National Security Agency (“NSA”), revealed startling details of widespread surveillance practices by the U.S. government into telephone and Internet communications of U.S. and foreign citizens.  The ensuing debate regarding the competing interests in national security and data privacy continues today, as these practices come under increased pressure in anticipation of two important developments coming in June 2015.

On June 1, 2015, Section 215 of the U.S. PATRIOT Act (50 U.S.C. § 1861) (“Section 215”) is set to expire.  Section 215 is the authority that allows the NSA, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), to collect “metadata” of every phone call that originated or terminated in the United States.  Some of the first documents revealed by Edward Snowden were orders by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISC”) (the court that entertains applications submitted by the U.S. government for electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes) requiring Verizon, Sprint and AT&T to hand over such metadata.  The FBI obtained these orders for the benefit of the NSA.

Previous attempts to reform the bulk collection of telephone metadata, most notably the USA FREEDOM Act originally proposed in October 2013, have been unsuccessful.  On March 23, 2015, the National Security Council of the White House confirmed that such collection will end on June 1, 2015, unless Congress takes action.

In response, a coalition of privacy advocates, human rights organizations, and technology companies issued an open letter dated March 25, 2015, calling on the government for meaningful reform of surveillance laws.  The letter, sign by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Wikimedia Foundation, among others, requests “a clear, strong, and effective end to bulk collection practices under the USA PATRIOT Act” as well as “an appropriate declassification regime for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decisions.”

On March 27, 2015, the President issued a statement supporting reform and specifically proposing the following changes:

  • The government should not collect or hold telephony metadata in bulk.
  • The data should remain at the telephone companies for the length of time it currently does today.
  • The government would obtain the data pursuant to individual orders from the FISC approving the use of specific numbers for such queries, if a judge agrees, based on national security concerns.

While the President pushes for this reform, he also directed the Department of Justice to seek a 90-day reauthorization of the existing Section 215 program, “given the importance of maintaining this capability.” 

In the meantime, on June 24, 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”), its highest court, is expected to render an opinion in a case that questions the effectiveness of the Safe Harbor Framework.

The Safe Harbor Framework is a key exception to EU’s Data Protection Directive, which prohibits any transfer of personal data to countries outside the EU that do not meet the EU’s “adequacy” standard for privacy protection.  As an exception for U.S. companies operating in the EU, the Safe Harbor Framework allows U.S. organizations to self-certify their compliance with the adequacy provision when they transfer EU personal data back to the U.S.

Read more @ http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6890e7c3-c52e-42b6-a783-327a1cee4cb6

 

Cyberspying under attack from all sides as ECJ and UN lose patience

Read more @ http://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/item/41355-cyberspying-under-attack-fr

 

NSA finding it harder to recruit specialists following Snowden leaks

A booming economy in Silicon Valley and the post-Snowden era is making it more difficult for the NSA to successfully recruit tech-skilled workers (NASDAQ:FB, NASDAQ:GOOG)

The National Security Agency (NSA) should be able to find itself 1,600 new recruits in 2015, with a heavy focus in computer science and math, but the task is getting harder. A combination of rising Silicon Valley tech employment/salaries mixed with Edward Snowden's intelligence leaks have damaged trust in the NSA from the public - and possible job recruits.

Read more @ http://www.tweaktown.com/news/44398/nsa-finding-harder-recruit-specialists-following-snowden-leaks/index.html

Edward Snowden's smashed laptop goes on show in London

The laptop used to store top-secret documents leaked by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden has gone on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The device was smashed apart under the instructions of British intelligence officials. It is part of a wider exhibit exploring freedom of speech and internet security.

Read more @ http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32154254 

 

Dead Spying Legislation Returns With Help From Big Business (Video)

 

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act failed after Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass government spying. But today it’s back, largely unchanged, as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act—and President Obama is expected to reverse his opposition to it.

Lee Fang reports at The Intercept:

For all its appeal to corporations, CISA represents a major new privacy threat to individual citizens. It lays the groundwork for corporations to feed massive amounts of communications to  private consortiums and the federal government, a scale of cooperation even greater than that revealed by Snowden. The law also breaks new ground in suppressing pushback against privacy invasions; in exchange for channeling data to the government, businesses are granted broad legal immunity from privacy lawsuits — potentially leaving consumers without protection if companies break privacy promises that would otherwise keep information out of the hands of authorities.

Ostensibly, CISA is supposed to help businesses guard against cyber attacks by sharing information on threats with one another and with the government. Attempts must be made to filter personal information out of the pool of data that is shared. But the legislation — at least as marked up by the Senate Intelligence Committee — provides an expansive definition of what can be construed as a cyber security threat, including any information for responding to or mitigating “an imminent threat of death, serious bodily harm, or serious economic harm,” or that is potentially related to threats relating to weapons of mass destruction, threats to minors, identity theft, espionage, protection of trade secrets, and other possible offenses. Asked at a hearing in February how quickly such information could be shared with the FBI, CIA, or NSA, Deputy Undersecretary for Cybersecurity Phyllis Schneck replied, “fractions of a second.” ...

The partnership between leading corporate lobbyists and the intelligence community was on full display at a cyber security summit hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce a few days before the midterm election last year, in which NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers asked a room filled with business representatives for support in passing laws like CISA. At one point, Ann Beauchesne, the lead homeland security lobbyist with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, asked Rogers, “How can the chamber be helpful to you?” — even suggesting a viral marketing campaign akin to the “ALS ice bucket challenge” to build public support. Watch the exchange below:

Read more @ http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/dead_surveillance_legislation_returns_with_help_from_big_business_20150402

 

How Big Business Is Helping Expand NSA Surveillance, Snowden Be Damned

Since November 11, 2011, with the introduction of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, American spy agencies have been pushing laws to encourage corporations to share more customer information. They repeatedly failed, thanks in part to NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass government surveillance. Then came Republican victories in last year’s midterm Congressional elections and a major push by corporate interests in favor of the legislation.

Today, the bill is back, largely unchanged, and if congressional insiders and the bill’s sponsors are to believed, the legislation could end up on President Obama’s desk as soon as this month. In another boon to the legislation, Obama is expected to reverse his past opposition and sign it, albeit in an amended and renamed form (CISPA is now CISA, the “Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act”). The reversal comes in the wake of high-profile hacks on JPMorgan Chase and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The bill has also benefitted greatly from lobbying by big business, which sees it as a way to cut costs and to shift some anti-hacking defenses onto the government.

For all its appeal to corporations, CISA represents a major new privacy threat to individual citizens. It lays the groundwork for corporations to feed massive amounts of communications to private consortiums and the federal government, a scale of cooperation even greater than that revealed by Snowden. The law also breaks new ground in suppressing pushback against privacy invasions; in exchange for channeling data to the government, businesses are granted broad legal immunity from privacy lawsuits — potentially leaving consumers without protection if companies break privacy promises that would otherwise keep information out of the hands of authorities.

Read more @ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/01/nsa-corporate-america-push-broad-cyber-surveillance-legislation/


"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~