And why is that because they were collecting all the time just before it and never stopped the terrorists.

Feds, Silicon Valley headed for 'collision' over encryption issue, post San Bernardino, wave of terror attacks

The competing goals of protecting Americans’ emails and other private electronic messages and helping the U.S. intelligence community decode them to foil terror plots are on a “collision” course, the Obama administration acknowledges.

"We understand that encryption is a very important part of being secure on the Internet," FBI Director James Comey told the Senate earlier this week. "We also all care about public safety. We also all see a collision between those things right now.”

Comey’s remarks Wednesday before the chamber’s Judiciary Committee follow the deadly San Bernardino terror attacks, the Paris suicide bombings last month and several others recent strikes in which the attackers and planners apparently communicated through encrypted messages.

Read more @ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/13/feds-silicon-valley-headed-for-collision-over-encryption-issue-post-san-bernardino-wave-terror-attacks.html

 

San Bernardino Shooting Revives NSA Surveillance Debate

Read more @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/san-bernardino-shooting-nsa-surveillance_5664affae4b079b2818f068d

France collects everything yet it never uncovered the terrorist’s plots…… not until after they committed the crime.  It honestly makes one wonder if these terrorist attacks are allowed to happen (collateral damage) so the screws can be tightened on privacy….. taking all manner of privacy away from everybody, because they are already collecting everything and the terrorist attacks still happen.

NSA debate takes new turns after Paris attacks

Privacy advocates are pushing back against arguments from the intelligence community that more surveillance powers would have prevented the deadly Paris terrorist attacks.

They’re offended at what they see as naked opportunism from supporters of tough surveillance powers and argue the rhetoric — including suggestions that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has blood on his hands — has gone too far.

Read more @ http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/261574-nsa-debate-takes-new-turns-after-paris-attacks

Rand Paul largely correct that French electronic surveillance law is stronger than what U.S. has

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul argued against excessive surveillance and the bulk collection of electronic communication data, saying the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., show it isn’t successful.

"The Paris tragedy ... happened while we were still doing bulk collection," Paul said on the Dec. 6, 2015, edition of NBC’s Meet the Press. "All bulk collection. Also in France, they have a program a thousandfold more invasive collecting all of the data of all the French. Yet they still weren't able to see this coming."

We wanted to gauge whether the French system is far more invasive than the one in the United States.

Mass surveillance 101

The key U.S. surveillance laws include the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed in 1978, and the USA Patriot Act, which was passed in 2002 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Portions of these laws have been variously reauthorized and revised, but the most relevant parts for analyzing Paul’s claim have to do with two broad topics: the process for eavesdropping on specific targets, and the collection of "bulk" metadata, which is information about the timing and frequency of electronic communications but not the content.

France had already been engaged in bulk data collection on a scale similar to or even more expansive than the United States, according a 2013 report by leading French newspaper Le Monde.

Read more @ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/08/rand-paul/rand-paul-largely-correct-french-electronic-survei/

Intelligence agencies are using terrorism as a lever to weaken online privacy

Perhaps predictably, the battle against ISIS is blurring into a battle against encryption -the encoding and scrambling of digital messages so that they can only be read by those who have the right keys. A showdown is on in the US, with security agencies demonising these privacy-protecting technologies and demanding a "backdoor" to them, while tech companies resist this logic. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has argued that there should be "no form of communication...that we cannot read".
Read more @ http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/intelligence-agencies-are-using-terrorism-as-a-lever-to-weaken-online-privacy/articleshow/50158673.cms

Editorial: Big mistake on metadata

Among the items not on President Obama’s exceedingly thin to-do list in the war on terror was any effort to restore the collection of metadata by the National Security Agency — data that might have been useful in determining whether the San Bernardino killers had any help from overseas.

That section of the Patriot Act was eliminated by legislation passed last June. For that first and foremost we have Edward Snowden to thank — and we do hope he’s having a swell time in exile in Russia.

But we also have U.S. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who were falling all over each other to capture GOP isolationist/privacy freak voters back then. Way to go, guys, that must have seemed a good idea at the time — the time before jihadists started shooting up a county service center in California.

In fact the data collection program officially came to an end just four days before the shooting, when the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued a ruling saying, “After November 28, 2015, no access to the BR (business record) metadata (phone records) will be permitted for intelligence analysis purposes.”

Read more @ http://www.bostonherald.com/opinion/editorials/2015/12/editorial_big_mistake_on_metadata

Some want snooping program reinstated

Revisions called into question following terror attacks.

In the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and California, a number of Republicans want to revive a controversial program that allowed U.S. intelligence officials to collect millions of phone records in an effort to determine if Americans were in contact with likely Islamic terrorists.

The program, dramatically revised this summer by Congress and President Barack Obama, had until the end of last month not only allowed the National Security Agency to store those records for five years, but to check a phone number, discover the numbers it called and how long each call lasted.

Read more @ http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/some-want-snooping-program-reinstated/nphc6/

He brands Snowden a traitor because he told the world about their illegal collections?

Santorum Defends NSA Data Gathering, Slams Cruz and Paul Over Snowden

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum expressed dismay that two of his GOP opponents have refused to call leaker Edward Snowden a traitor.

Santorum, speaking Thursday at the Republican Jewish Coalition Forum in Washington, touted his national security and anti-terrorism record. He then defended the National Security Agency’s data-gathering program, which was reformed and weakened.

“We now have lost that ability, in large part because of two Republicans running for president,” said Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator. “We have both of them refusing to call Edward Snowden a traitor.

Read more @ http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/12/03/santorum-defends-nsa-data-gathering-slams-cruz-and-paul-over-snowden/

Ray McGovern on the Courage From Whistleblowing

When Edward Snowden in early June 2013 began to reveal classified data showing criminal collect-it-all surveillance programs operated by the U.S. government’s National Security Agency, former NSA professionals became freer to spell out the liberties taken with the Bill of Rights, as well as the feckless, counterproductive nature of bulk electronic data collection.

On Jan. 7, 2014, four senior retired specialists with a cumulative total of 144 years of work with NSA – William Binney, Thomas Drake, Edward Loomis, and Kirk Wiebe – prepared a Memorandum for the President providing a comprehensive account of the problems at NSA, together with suggestions as to how they might be best addressed.

The purpose was to inform President Obama as fully as possible, as he prepared to take action in light of Snowden’s revelations.

Read more @ http://antiwar.com/blog/2015/12/11/ray-mcgovern-on-the-courage-from-whistleblowing/

 

Rubio Doubles Down on Repealing NSA Restrictions

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio amped his criticism Friday of the Obama administration’s support for restrictions to a major National Security Agency surveillance program, and joined with fellow Republicans to call for increasing the agency’s powers in the wake of recent deadly shootings in Paris and California inspired by the Islamic State.

“Earlier this year, President Obama unfortunately pushed for and Congress passed the ‘U.S.A. Freedom Act,’ which greatly curtailed the ability of our intelligence professionals to identify and track terrorist communications,” the 2016 GOP hopeful wrote in an op-ed penned alongside Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Joni Ernst of Iowa.

“Edward Snowden, mistakenly lauded by some as a hero, not only betrayed this country by releasing highly classified information and defecting to Russia, but spread dangerous misinformation about programs that helped keep Americans safe — namely, the telephony metadata program.”

Read more @ http://www.insidesources.com/rubio-doubles-down-on-repealing-nsa-restrictions/

Cotton Introduces Bill To Compel Retention Of Metadata

LITTLE ROCK — U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Wednesday he is introducing a bill to stop metadata collected from Americans’ phone calls from being deleted.

On Dec. 1, the USA Freedom Act took effect, imposing limits on the bulk collection of Americans’ phone data. Cotton was the only member of Arkansas’ congressional delegation to vote against the bill, which was introduced after classified memos leaked by Edward Snowden exposed the National Security Agency’s extensive data collection program.

Last month, Cotton introduced the Liberty Through Strength Act, a bill that would have delayed the USA Freedom Act from taking effect until 2017, but was unable to get a vote on it before the Freedom Act took effect. He said Wednesday he is introducing a second bill on the topic, the Liberty Through Strength Act II.

“On Sunday our constitutional, legal, and proven NSA collection architecture shifted to an untested, less effective system in the dead of the night,” Cotton said in a statement. “This shift came at a time when our enemies are emboldened and we face an elevated national security threat. Worse, President Obama has decided that he will press delete on the metadata records we currently have, making it impossible to identify terrorist connections among these data that would reveal ISIS and Al Qaeda sleeper cells.”

Read more @ http://swtimes.com/news/state-news/cotton-introduces-bill-compel-retention-metadata

Simply not true when they were collecting it…… it never uncovered the Boston Bombers, or the Californian terrorists, 9/11 or the Paris attacks…..  Do they just want it to search for evidence after the fact?

Woolsey: Post-Snowden Reforms Make It Harder to Catch Terrorists Like Calif. Shooters

Read more @ http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/james-woolsey-snowden-metadata-reforms/2015/12/03/id/704490/

Celebrate the End of the NSA’s Phone Dragnet, But Stay Vigilant About Privacy Rights

At 11:59 p.m. on November 29, 2015, the National Security Agency officially ended its much-criticized 14-year dragnet of American phone-call metadata. Established under Section 215 of the post-September 11 Patriot Act, the program collected information on the numbers involved in phone calls and the calls’ durations (although not their content), for almost every mobile device in the country. Though it was ostensibly anonymous data, privacy activists have pointed out that with the right network analysis and cross-referencing of phone number directories, this metadata could be pinned to individuals, building a world of detailed information about them. Combined with the fact that the program was the first and best-known story to emerge from Edward Snowden’s 2013 NSA leaks, the agency’s metadata vacuum became the embodiment of the intelligence sector’s misguided overreach, failing to balance security and liberty, and with very little to show for it. So for many the program’s death was cause for celebration.

The victory seems even sweeter because it represents rising awareness about and support for robust privacy guarantees, thoughtfully balanced with restrained security policies. Mandated this June with the passage of the USA Freedom Act, a legislative response to Snowden-era revelations on phone metadata collection, the program’s closure signals that politicians now feel secure and justified in combating excessive intelligence programs. The fact that the curtain drop went off without a hitch soon after the terrorist attacks in Paris, which led to knee-jerk calls to extend the program for two more years (just in case), speaks to the resilience of this critical sentiment. Noting that recent legislation has opened the door to other surveillance reforms and greater intelligence-world transparency, many hope that this gain is a sign of more to come.

Read more @ http://magazine.good.is/articles/nsa-metadata-collection-vigilance

A poll just found Ted Cruz surging past Donald Trump in Iowa

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has taken his first lead in a poll of a key nominating state.

A new Monmouth University poll published Monday had Cruz surging ahead of Donald Trump in Iowa, the first nominating state that can play a key role in launching insurgent presidential campaigns.

Among likely Republican voters in the state, Cruz garnered 24% support to Trump’s 19% support. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) had 17% support in the poll, while retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who briefly surged ahead of Trump in the fall, is now down to 13%.

“This marks the first time Ted Cruz has held a lead in any of the crucial early states. As Ben Carson’s stock has fallen, Cruz has been able to corral most of those voters,” Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, wrote in a press release.

Read more @ http://www.businessinsider.com.au/poll-ted-cruz-donald-trump-iowa-2015-12

Obama wants help from tech firms to fight terrorism

The use of encryption by tech companies has come under criticism from U.S. law enforcement agencies

U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking the help of tech companies to combat terror threats, which he described as entering a new phase.

Obama's remarks could put into sharp focus again the demand by law enforcement agencies for tech companies to provide ways for the government to be able to access encrypted communications.

In an address late Sunday from the Oval Office, Obama said he "would urge hi-tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape from justice."

The address comes after two attackers, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik,  killed 14 people and injured another 21 in a gun attack in a social service center in San Bernardino, California.

The government has come around to the view that it was a fundamentalist attack after Malik reportedly put up a post on Facebook claiming allegiance to the Islamic State. As the Internet erases the distance between countries, "we see growing efforts by terrorists to poison the minds of people," Obama said.

Read more @ http://www.cio.com.au/article/590299/obama-wants-help-from-tech-firms-fight-terrorism/

Edward Snowden Is Still a Hero, Regardless of ISIS, San Bernardino and Paris

It's official. The terrorists are winning. They have achieved the one and only goal of terrorism itself: to achieve a political outcome based on the "terror" caused by highly publicized attacks on civilians.

Just days after Dagen McDowell of Fox Business blamed the San Bernardino shooting on Edward Snowden and the USA Freedom Act, Joe Scarborough called for "post-Edward Snowden legislation that stops this person-to-person encrypted messaging" on Morning Joe. He also said, "We're going to have to give the CIA powers to interrogate these terrorists to see where the next attack's going to come from."

As the CIA has always had the power to interrogate anyone it wishes to, this can only be code for "torture." Lest this be written off as the ravings of MSNBC's token Republican, his Democratic guest agreed wholeheartedly. Scarborough had either the audacity or the cluelessness (it's always hard to tell) to end the segment by riffing on a Bush/Cheney mantra, saying: "The world changed after Paris."

Anything both Fox and MSNBC are trumpeting in unison can reasonably be assumed to be completely wrong.

McDowell's unhinged statement proceeds from the assumption that Snowden's exposure of indiscriminate NSA spying and the subsequent USA Freedom Act crippled the intelligence community's ability to identify potential threats like Syed Farook and his wife.

As New Hampshire liberty activist Chris Lawless quipped, "So, ending the data collection means that 30 hours later there is a shooting. Ok."

Lawless was referring to the timeline built into the Act. It's prohibition on bulk collection didn't go into effect until midnight on Dec. 1. That means the government was free to do what it had always done under the Patriot Act until the day before the shooting.

The intelligence community's failure to identify Farook, even before its powers were curtailed, wasn't an isolated incident. The government has never prevented a terrorist attack outside of those it invented itself and entrapped hapless would-be jihadists into going along with. Like mass shootings, private citizens have stopped the only terrorist attacks that have been foiled, before, during and after the Patriot Act gave the government vast new powers.

The government failed to prevent 9/11, despite an FBI agent's emphatic warning about flight school students learning to fly, but not how to land. They even caught a former terrorist who was trained to carry out the same kind of attack a year before 9/11 and failed to "connect the dots."

After the Patriot Act was passed, the government failed to prevent the shoe bomber's attempt to detonate C4. Private citizens overpowered him and thwarted the attack. The intelligence community even failed to keep the underwear bomber off the plane he tried to blow up, despite the terrorist's own father warning the CIA he was missing and likely seeking to perpetrate an attack.

As for Paris, the story is substantively the same. France's intelligence community has even more surveillance power than their pre-USA Freedom Act American counterparts. They failed to prevent the recent attacks.

In each case, it wasn't that the government couldn't obtain the information it needed to prevent a terrorist attack. They had it. But the information was a needle lost in the haystack of far too much information collected on mostly innocent people.

Read more @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-mullen/edward-snowden-is-still-h_b_8783626.html?ir=Australia

Edward Snowden to speak at CU via video chat

BOULDER - The CU Boulder Distinguished Speakers Board announced that former National Security Agency system administrator Edward Snowden will take part in a video chat at the University of Colorado in Boulder early next year.

Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist will moderate the February 16 event from the Macky Auditorium. Attendees will be able to ask Snowden questions, but details about that process have not been released.

Read more @ http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2015/12/11/edward-snowden-to-speak-at-cu-via-video-chat/77187748/

Edward Snowden Shares Recipe For Hot Leaks In BRITDOC Cookbook 'Eat Your Heart Out'

Edward Snowden may be one of America's most wanted, and a name that polarises opinion on both sides of the Atlantic ever since he left US soil in 2013, but he still has to eat - right?

Now, it transpires he's used his time in seclusion well, perfecting his recipe for 'Hot Leaks' - fittingly - and his favourite dish is set to be included in a special cookbook being produced by the people behind his Oscar-winning film 'CITIZENFOUR'.

Read more @  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/11/edward-snowden-cook-book-britdoc_n_8784090.html

"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 Dec 14 15 10:43 AM.