Edward Snowden says UK spies can send 'Smurfs' to hack into your phone and gain 'total control' over it

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned that UK spy agency GCHQ has the ability to hack into smartphones with encrypted text messages and gain “total control,” the BBC reports.

Snowden told the BBC that GCHQ has something called “Smurf suite,” which is a collection of spying programs that the agency can use to hack into the phones of suspected terrorists.

One tool is called “Dreamy Smurf.” Snowden says it allows GCHQ to turn on mobile phones without the user knowing. There’s also “Nosey Smurf,” which can be used to turn on the phone’s microphone.

Another tool in GCHQ’s “Smurf suite” is “Tracker Smurf.” It can turn on a smartphone’s geolocation feature, which allows intelligence agencies to accurately track a user’s location. Authorities can already track smartphones by measuring which cell tower they’re nearest to, but it looks like this tool is much more accurate.

Read more @ http://www.businessinsider.com.au/edward-snowden-gchq-smurf-hack-smartphones-2015-10

 

Hillary Clinton Is Wrong About Edward Snowden

I’ve already given my instant verdict on Tuesday night’s Democratic debate: in terms of the horse race, Hillary Clinton was the clear winner, although Bernie Sanders also did pretty well. But it was a long discussion about serious issues, and some of the exchanges bear closer inspection—including the one about Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who is currently languishing in Russia.

The exchange began with host Anderson Cooper asking Lincoln Chafee, a former governor of Rhode Island, “Governor Chafee: Edward Snowden, is he a traitor or a hero?” Chafee replied that he would bring Snowden home without forcing him to serve any jail time. “The American government was acting illegally,” he continued. “That’s what the federal courts have said; what Snowden did showed that the American government was acting illegally for the Fourth Amendment. So I would bring him home.”

Chafee was stating a truth. In May of this year, a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, ruled that the N.S.A., in routinely collecting the phone records of millions of Americans—an intelligence program that Snowden exposed in 2013—broke the law of the land. The Patriot Act did not authorize the government to gather calling records in bulk, the judges said. “Such expansive development of government repositories of formerly private records would be an unprecedented contraction of the privacy expectations of all Americans,” the decision read. The ruling overturned one that had been handed down in December, 2013, in which a federal judge, William Pauley, said that the N.S.A.’s collection of metadata was legal.

After Chafee spoke, Cooper turned to Hillary Clinton and asked, “Secretary Clinton, hero or traitor?” Clinton, who earlier in the debate had described herself as “a progressive who likes to get things done,” replied, “He broke the laws of the United States. He could have been a whistle-blower. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistle-blower. He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that.”

“Should he do jail time?” Cooper asked, to which Clinton replied, “In addition—in addition, he stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands. So I don’t think he should be brought home without facing the music.”

From a civil-liberties perspective—and a factual perspective—Clinton’s answers were disturbing enough that they warrant parsing

Read more @ http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/hillary-clinton-is-wrong-about-edward-snowden

Emails and Edward Snowden: US Democratic Presidential Debate highlights

Read more @ http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/emails-and-edward-snowden-us-democratric-presidential-debate-highlights-1306725

If Edward Snowden Is Right About Clinton's Emails, Bernie Sanders Will Win a Landslide Victory

Read more @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/if-edward-snowden-is-right-about-clintons-emails_b_8225470.html?ir=Australia

 

Edward Snowden and Allies Issue Warnings as Australia Unleashes Mass Spying

As new controversial metadata laws went into effect in Australia on Tuesday, whistleblower Edward Snowden took to Twitter to warn the country’s residents about the privacy violations that accompany the legislation.

The new laws require Australian telecommunications companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) to store user metadata—such as phone records and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses—for two years, during which time it may be accessed by law enforcement without a warrant. Civil liberties and Internet freedom groups have criticized the laws as invasive and unconstitutional.

“Beginning today, if you are Australian, everything you do online is being tracked, stored, and retained for 2 years,” Snowden wrote, linking to a campaign by advocacy group GetUp! that gave instructions on how to circumvent the data retention scheme.

Beginning today, if you are Australian, everything you do online is being tracked, stored, and retained for 2 years. https://t.co/g8etUYgHGr

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 12, 2015

The laws are “costly, ineffective, and against the public interest,” the GetUp! campaign said.

Read more @ http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/snowden_and_allies_issue_warnings_as_australia_unleashes_mass_spying_201510

 

Australia accessed NSA spy data more than UK over 12 months: Edward Snowden document

Australian intelligence authorities accessed private internet data gathered by the US National Security Agency even more than their British counterparts over a 12-month period, according to a previously unreported document released by Edward Snowden.

The document relates to the NSA's PRISM program, which takes chunks of users' online activity directly from companies like Google.

In the 12 months to May 2012, Australia's electronic spy agency, the ASD, then known as DSD, produced 310 reports based on PRISM. The UK produced 197.

Eric King from British activist group Privacy International found the document and told Lateline he was astonished.

"What we've now found out is that DSD, the Australian intelligence services, were using PRISM, they were having access directly to Google, Apple, Facebook and other big US companies which are right into heart of their customer's data and pulling that out," he said.

"The fact that [Australia] had a third more than even Britain used is astonishing to my mind."

Read more @ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-15/edward-snowden-docs-show-australia-accessed-nsa-spy-data/6856994

 

Edward Snowden has proposed a new treaty. Here’s why it might or might not take off.

At the Council for Foreign Relations Web site, David Fidler says that Edward Snowden isn’t radical enough. He identifies three problems with the proposal that Snowden, David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras have made for a treaty to stop indiscriminate surveillance and protect whistle blowers.

First, Fidler argues that existing treaties recognize the right to privacy – so why do we need a new one? Second – given that states “don’t abide by existing treaties, [why would they] now decide to respect one that enshrines privacy as a fundamental right and outlaws mass surveillance?” Third – why would states agree to any innovative new compliance mechanisms, given that they’re not interested in actually complying? Fidler claims that “this predictable problem explains why oversight mechanisms in human rights treaties are notoriously weak. Put another way, states can riddle bulletproof documents with holes because they, not privacy advocates, write treaty rules. Oddly, the Snowden-treaty movement wants us to traipse, once again, into this cul-de-sac.”

Instead of a treaty, Fidler proposes a Snowden Charter, “an accord among civil society, consumers, and technology companies to confront governments and confound mass surveillance through, among other things, continuing to expand encryption in our digital lives.”

Without getting into political questions about whether a Snowden Treaty (or Snowden Charter) would be a good or bad idea, Fidler’s arguments provide a valuable contrast to political science arguments about treaties. Fidler knows a lot about the Snowden controversies. He is also a law professor interested in how non-state approaches could solve international problems. In general, political scientists are more skeptical about civil society based approaches than Fidler seems to be. Here’s why.

Snowden, Greenwald and their allies are not that radical

Contrary to public perceptions, neither Edward Snowden or Glenn Greenwald are very radical, as I discuss in an article for the National Interest. Snowden is a libertarian – but one who supported President Obama’s initial presidential campaign, and who has said he’s content to let the existing democratic system decide how to deal with his revelations. Greenwald is a pugnacious American Civil Liberties Union style liberal, with a strong bias towards free speech. Both are plausibly within the mainstream of American politics, and it is unsurprising that they advocate a mainstream solution, such as a treaty. This is not to say, of course, that their views aren’t controversial – but the controversies surrounding their views and actions are similar to previous disputes that divided mainstream opinion (e.g. over the Pentagon Papers) in which people disagreed over the relationship between national secrecy laws and free public debate.

Read more @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/10/14/edward-snowden-has-proposed-a-new-treaty-heres-why-it-might-or-might-not-take-off/

 

Why one Utah lawmaker is calling Edward Snowden a 'traitor'

At a security conference on Tuesday,  Rep. Chris Stewart, a Republican, argued that a $1.7 billion NSA data center near Salt Lake City doesn't focus on bulk data collection and had harsh words for the former NSA contractor.

The National Security Agency's massive data center in Utah isn't being used to store Americans' personal phone calls or social media activity, but plays a key role in protecting the country from cyber-attacks by hostile foreign governments, U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah said Tuesday.

Stewart's comments came during a national security conference he hosted on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City. NSA Utah director Dave Winberg was among the speakers, but didn't talk specifically what happens at a $1.7 billion data center south of Salt Lake City. He instead focused his remarks on the NSA's global purpose.

Read more @ http://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/1014/Why-one-Utah-lawmaker-is-calling-Edward-Snowden-a-traitor

VMware CEO credits Edward Snowden with transforming enterprise cloud attitudes

VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger spoke out at the VMworld Europe conference about how the "professional era" of cloud has been shaped by Edward Snowden's NSA revelations

The Edward Snowden revelations have been instrumental in hastening the maturation of the cloud computing market, as enterprises move beyond experimenting with off-premise technologies.

That’s the view of VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger, who talked at length during the second day keynote of the VMworld user conference in Barcelona about the evolution in how enterprises are treating cloud, as CIOs and IT managers become more accustomed to using it.

Read more @ http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500255407/VMware-CEO-credits-Edward-Snowden-with-transforming-enterprise-cloud-attitudes

Edward Snowden And Black Lives Matter Activist DeRay Mckesson Had A Great Dialogue About Surveillance

They also agreed to have a public debate on the relationship between police violence and surveillance.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson had a spirited discussion about their respective causes on Twitter Monday night, trading points on the relationship between police and state violence and surveillance.

It started when Snowden tweeted:

If you want to protect your rights, you've got to protect the rights of others. Social justice is common sense.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 12, 2015

Mckesson then asked Snowden what he thought about the Black Lives Matter movement and police violence.

What are your thoughts about Black Lives Matter, the movement re: ending police & state violence? https://t.co/KfvYA8mtlL

— deray mckesson (@deray) October 12, 2015

Mckesson also brought up how activists like him have been monitored by government officials. He asked Snowden for tips on how activists can safeguard their information and protect their organization.

Snowden, in turn, asked Mckesson how people "can highlight the danger" of intelligence officials targeting civil rights activists -- which has occurred throughout American history, most notably during the Civil Rights movement.

In the end, the two agreed to hold a public debate about these topics, which, judging from the Twitter exchange, could be very interesting.

Read more @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/edward-snowden-black-lives-matter_561c5a81e4b0c5a1ce60527c?section=australia&adsSiteOverride=au

In Tweet, Edward Snowden Scolds Those Who Censor Speakers on Campuses

'An individual trying to limit speech at universities is interested in neither university nor justice.'

Edward Snowden tweeted his support for free speech on campuses after being asked to denounce leftist students who disinvite speakers.

After Snowden wrote that “social justice is common sense,” another Twitter user replied: “Can you please direct that at SJWs that uninvite speakers at universities because their views may be offensive to some?” The acronym “SJW” is shorthand for “social justice warrior,” a derogatory reference to far-left activists, often of the feminist persuasion.

Read more @ https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/13/in-tweet-edward-snowden-scolds-those-who

Edward Snowden can use social media to his advantage

The entire world knows who Edward Snowden is.

He’s the infamous former CIA agent who leaked classified information to reporters regarding surveillance on U.S. citizens and surveillance on a global level. He’s been the topic of heated debates over whether or not he’s a traitor or a patriot. It’s an off week when he’s not mentioned in the news in some shape or form, especially since he’s currently taking asylum in Russia with its government, as some are trying to find ways to get him back on U.S. soil.

However, just because he’s exiled to Russia doesn’t mean he’s given up on making sure the world knows what the National Security Agency is really up to. On Sept. 29, he joined the realm of social media with Twitter, his first tweet reading, “Can you hear me now?”

Being a fellow Twitter user, my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to follow him. I was pleasantly surprised. It’s made me come to the conclusion that what he’s doing with social media is fantastic.

When this story first broke, I was slightly confused. Why would someone who’s a fugitive and has asylum in Russia create a social media account for the world to see? Wouldn’t it be best just to keep his mouth shut since the entire U.S. government wants him back in order to face the consequence for his actions?

What’s even more interesting to me is the fact that he’s only following the NSA, the organization he blew the whistle on.

He’s still trying to find ways to get his voice heard in society, despite his status. It really shows his commitment to his cause and it’s clear that he’s not going anywhere. He might be in exile, but he’s still hard at work.

Read more @ http://www.breezejmu.org/opinion/edward-snowden-can-use-social-media-to-his-advantage/article_19d207e4-72c4-11e5-aa85-2328820ce408.html

Edward Snowden: US has not offered me plea deal

Whistleblower says he has offered to do time in prison as part of a deal to return to US, but ‘we are still waiting for them to call us back’

The US justice department has made no effort to contact Edward Snowden to discuss a plea deal that would see him return from exile in Russia, the NSA whistleblower said in an interview on BBC Panorama to be broadcast on Monday night.

Snowden, who is wanted under the Espionage Act after leaking tens of thousands of top secret documents, said he had offered to do time in prison as part of a deal. “We are still waiting for them to call us back,” he said.

His comments come just months after Eric Holder, who was US attorney-general until April, said Snowden’s revelations had “spurred a necessary debate”. He also said the “possibility exists” of a plea deal.

But senior figures in the security services in both the US and UK are unforgiving, wanting him to serve a long sentence both as punishment and to act as a deterrent to others.

Read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/05/edward-snowden-us-has-not-offered-me-plea-deal

 

Would Rand Paul Pardon Edward Snowden?

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul believes Edward Snowden deserves some punishment for leaking classified documents about government surveillance, though he says it should be less than what some of his fellow Republicans have called for against the former National Security Agency worker.

During the convention of the Republican Liberty Caucus on Friday, a college student asked Paul whether he would pardon Snowden if elected president. The ballroom in Nashua, New Hampshire, quickly fell silent as Paul joked, "There's always got to be an easy question."

Some libertarians have called for Snowden to be pardoned. Paul's own father and one-time presidential candidate, Ron Paul, has praised Snowden in the past and supported a petition asking for clemency.

Read more @ http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rand-paul-pardon-edward-snowden/story?id=34379901

Edward Snowden: Governments Want to Own Your Phone Instead of You

NSA whistleblower and American fugitive Edward Snowden has revealed information on the scope and capabilities of the United Kingdom’s GCHQ intelligence agency. He has found that this British version of the NSA, “a subsidiary of the NSA,” according to Snowden, can hack into and control British citizen’s phones without a warrant, or without the owner even noticing.

Government’s turning smartphones into smart tracking devices

Americans may have heard of the “Stingray” program that police and government agencies have used in major American cities since 2012. With Stingray, illegal and unconstitutional access of phone conversations and locations is collected using “Stingrays.” These devices can act as a cell tower in an area, intercepting calls, and finding locations of phones.

Three years later, American authorities have probably increased their abilities since, but Snowden discusses what the GCHQ is doing with consumer phones in Britain. He describes the government agency’s encoded computer programs within the UK and used the names of characters from the 1980’s cartoon, “The Smurfs.” He relayed the intel in an interview with the BBC’s “Panorama.”

Read more @ http://cointelegraph.com/news/115402/edward-snowden-governments-want-to-own-your-phone-instead-of-you

 

Edward Snowden, Miles Davis films pushed back to next year

Two much-anticipated films — one about CIA secrets leaker Edward Snowden, and another about music legend Miles Davis — have been pushed back into 2016.

Originally slated for a Christmas Day release, Oliver Stone’s “Snowden” will now be coming out on May 13, according to a release from the film’s distributor, Open Road. Written by Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald, “Snowden” stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the title role. Other cast members include Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Rhys Ifans, Nicolas Cage, Scott Eastwood, Joely Richardson and Timothy Olyphant.

The script is based on the books “The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man,” by Luke Harding, and “Time of the Octopus,” by Anatoly Kucherena.

Read more @ http://entertainment.suntimes.com/movies/snowden-miles-davis-films-pushed-back-next-year/

 

Edward Snowden didn’t turn off emails from Twitter and received 47GB of notifications

Sometime between joining Twitter and sending his first tweet, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden forgot to check his notification settings. If he did, he might've noticed that by default Twitter sends email notifications for pretty much every social interaction.

Whoopsies.

Read more @ http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2015/10/1/9434581/edward-snowden-twitter-47GB-email-notifications-whoopsies 


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

Edited 1 time by PeacefulSwannie Oct 15 15 8:03 PM.