Reddit change raises alarm about possible U.S. government spying

(Reuters) – Digital privacy advocates and users of Reddit expressed their alarm on Friday over a change in the forum’s transparency report that suggested it may have been asked to give customer data to FBI investigators under a secretive government authority.

The annual report lists a variety of requests the site has received for information on users and for removal of content. On Thursday, Reddit deleted a paragraph known as a “warrant canary.”

The paragraph had said that Reddit had not been subject to national security letters, which are used by the FBI to conduct electronic surveillance without the need for court approval, or “any other classified request for user information.”

Privacy advocates have long contested the letters, saying they are not subject to sufficient judicial oversight or transparency safeguards.

Brett Max Kaufman, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said on Friday that authorities were possibly seeking the IP address, or an identifying number that corresponds to a specific computer, of an anonymous user on Reddit. Private messages between users could also be subject to search.

Read more @ http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/03/reddit-change-raises-alarm-about-possible-u-s-government-spying/

In “Darker Moments,” Former CIA Chief Didn’t Not Want Edward Snowden Assassinated

Back in 2013, former CIA and former NSA Director Michael Hayden made an ill-advised joke when he alluded to wanting to put Edward Snowden on a kill list. Now, in an interview with Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan, Hayden is finally clarifying hist stance—sort of.

In the clip above, Hasan asks the former embodiment of Big Brother directly, “Do you believe [Snowden] should be assassinated and put on a kill list as many say you suggested?”

Hayden is... less direct, spending a lot of time demurring and offering half answers to what should be a fairly simple of course not, I’m not a maniac.

Read more @ http://gawker.com/in-darker-moments-former-cia-chief-didn-t-not-want-e-1769245074

 

Former CIA/NSA Chief Hayden Fantasized About Assassinating Edward Snowden

The spy chief under the George W. Bush administration says that assassinating the whistleblower was something he considered during his ‘darker moments.’

In an interview last Friday with Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden admitted that he had daydreamed about having whistleblower and US citizen Edward Snowden assassinated.

This isn’t the first time that the former head of America’s top-two surveillance agencies alluded to an extrajudicial killing of Snowden. In 2013, Hayden floated the idea that Snowden should be added to America’s drone war kill list.

Read more @ http://sputniknews.com/us/20160407/1037607554/cia-nsa-hayden-snowden-assassination.html

 

SFU Edward Snowden talk a ‘coup’ for Vancouver

Simon Fraser University hosts sold-out talk with the NSA whistleblower at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre as leak of Panama papers dominate global headlines.

As the world reels from the release of the Panama Papers, Vancouverites are set to get a timely and unique perspective from the most famous leaker of all: Edward Snowden.

The National Security Agency whistleblower will speak, via web link, to a sold-out audience at Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Tuesday evening as part of a Simon Fraser University Public Square forum.

The forum, announced in February and sold out in six hours, was already going to delve deep into issues of big data, security and human rights during the panel discussion, but feels even more relevant in light of reportedly the biggest data leak in history.

The Panama Papers, leaked to more than 100 news organizations including the Toronto Star, contains the private database of law firm Mossack Fonseca and reveals how offshore tax havens are used by companies and individuals, including some world leaders, to avoid billions of dollars in taxes.

Simon Fraser University communications professor Catherine Murray, one of the expert panelists speaking at the event, could hardly believe her luck.

“There was no set up for this, no way we could have contemplated the Panama Papers [coinciding with Snowden’s talk],” she said. “We’ll have to wait and see what he has to say about it, but he’s going to be no doubt deeply engaged.”

Read more @ http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2016/04/04/sfu-edward-snowden-talk-a-coup-for-vancouver.html

 

Edward Snowden: 'I'm not an unhappy ending' for future whistleblowers

Speaking at a conference Snowden refused to be seen as a warning sign to future leakers, saying of his time in Russia: ‘I am actually more effective now’

It’s not hard to argue that Edward Snowden is a warning to future leakers of government secrets. He’s stuck in Russia. Can only show up at parties as a video screen. And many of the western surveillance programs he outed continue three years later.

But in a video interview on Friday at RightsCon, a technology conference in San Francisco focused on free speech, Snowden said that’s not how he sees it. That, he said, hopefully encourages more Snowden’s to come forward in the future.

“I don’t think I’m an unhappy ending. I don’t think this is this great deterrent,” he told the audience. “I’m actually more fulfilled now, more connected now and more effective now in my work.”

Whether or not Snowden, the former US spy agency contractor, is seen as having suffered for leaking troves of documents on classified programs to the Guardian, Washington Post and other outlets, is key for western authorities in deterring future cases.

Former Obama administration officials, including Eric Holder, have suggested a plea deal could be possible with Snowden. Even Barack Obama has said Snowden prompted a needed debate, though he disagreed with his tactics.

But the administration has held firm with Snowden because to do otherwise could open the floodgates for future leakers. Snowden has said he’d return to the US if he could be guaranteed a fair trial.

Read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/01/edward-snowden-whistleblower-russia-exile

 

The Covert Roots of the Panama Papers

Panama has long been a haven for money launderers—including the CIA.

It should come as no surprise that the CIA’s finances are a secret. One of the rare glimpses into the agency’s funding came when Edward Snowden leaked a copy of the intelligence “black budget” to The Washington Post in 2013. But if history is any indication, the CIA may well have resources that don’t appear on any congressional document, highly classified or otherwise. Covert operations, by their very nature, often require access to off-the-books funding. The CIA’s first operation was paid for with funds seized from the Nazis, and in the years since, the agency has been notoriously creative about how it obtains its money.

Adnan Khashoggi would know. A “principal foreign agent” of the United States, as one Senate report referred to him, the billionaire playboy made a fortune (more than $100 million between 1970 and 1975 alone) from commissions negotiating arms deals with his native Saudi Arabia. He used these windfalls, in turn, to cultivate political clout—including, allegedly, with President Richard Nixon. In the aftermath of Watergate, when Congress began reining in the CIA, Khashoggi helped establish the supranational intelligence partnership known as the Safari Club. Soon after, he aided the CIA in circumventing another congressional impediment. With money borrowed from the Saudi and U.S. intelligence-linked Bank of Credit and Commerce International, he financed the illegal arms sales that set off the Iran-Contra scandal.

One way Khashoggi structured his shadowy holdings during his heyday was through the specialized services of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm that is in the news for having helped global luminaries like Vladimir Putin hide their money. Thanks to a recent report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, we now know Khashoggi to be among a number of former spies and CIA associates implicated by the 2.6 terabytes of offshore financial documents provided to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung last summer.

That his name should appear in an international dark money scandal suggests something about the nature of tax havens that much of the media’s coverage has thus far avoided grappling with. The Panama Papers have largely been presented as an unprecedented insight into how global elites hide their fortunes from tax collectors and other regulators. But they also underscore how tax havens are used by covert agencies and other shadowy players to launder dirty money, a practice that has a long history in which Panama, in particular, has played a notable part.

Read more @ https://newrepublic.com/article/132502/covert-roots-panama-papers

 

Surprise resignation threatens to hobble privacy watchdog

The surprise resignation of the nation’s top federal privacy watchdog threatens to handicap a key government body that has only recently escaped irrelevance.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) sat ineffective for years, until David Medine was confirmed by the Senate to be its chairman — and only full-time member — in 2013. 

The board then hit the ground running, with stinging criticism of federal spying powers and new details about U.S. surveillance.

But Medine's unexpected announcement last week that he would resign his post this summer — a year and a half before the end of his term — could plunge the board back into obscurity.

In the short-term, the PCLOB will be able to continue on without Medine, even though the four other members only work part-time. By law, they could increase the amount of time spent with the board, if they so chose. 

But without a chairman, the board will be unable to directly hire new staffers from outside the government, which could become a problem if the vacancy lingers.

“With all due respect to all of the other board members … they’re part-time,” said Faiza Patel, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program. “Having somebody full-time, driving the work for the board like this, is really important to get things done.”

And there could be more problems if it takes until 2017 for the Senate to confirm a new chairman.

Read more @ http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/275545-surprise-vacancy-threatens-privacy-watchdog

 

Surveillance Debate Gets a Needed Dose of Racial Perspective

ALVARO BEDOYA HAS been working on surveillance, privacy, and technology in Washington for years now. Before founding Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology, he served as chief counsel to Senator Al Franken, D-Minn., and the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law.

But as surveillance became a major national issue thanks to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Bedoya saw something disturbing amid the Washington wonkery: A huge gulf between the discussions of government spying, on the one hand, and aggressive policing tactics in minority communities on the other.

“We’re having these two separate debates that are running in parallel and never intersecting,” Bedoya explains. “There’s no recognition that those issues constantly overlap. The level of policing of the black community is facilitated by the surveillance laws and surveillance technology developed for the war on terror.”

Today’s much-anticipated all-day conference, “The Color of Surveillance: Government Monitoring of the African American Community,” is an attempt to bridge the gulf. The conference, organized by Bedoya and Georgetown Law professor Paul Butler, runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, and is being live streamed here, hashtag #ColorofSurveillance.

Read more @ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/08/surveillance-debate-gets-a-needed-dose-of-racial-perspective/

 

Edward Snowden: Panama Papers Leaks Show Change Doesn't Happen By Itself

VANCOUVER — Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden says a trove of leaked data on offshore tax havens in Panama highlights more than ever the vital role of the whistleblower in a free society.

The ex-National Security Agency analyst told a Vancouver audience the so-called Panama papers demonstrate that the most privileged and powerful are operating by a different set of rules.

Over video conference from Moscow, Snowden says it's happening without citizens' knowledge, awareness or consent, adding they don't even pay the same taxes as everyone else.

Read more @ http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/06/panama-papers-leaks-show-change-doesn-t-happen-by-itself-says-edward-snowden_n_9621686.html

 

Here's the latest travesty of secrecy from the NSA

The National Security Agency has never been particularly forthcoming. But its latest tight-lipped refusal to share information with the public is egregious, even for the NSA.

Now, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the National Security Agency is withholding its own ethical and legal guidelines, calling them "top secret." This is ridiculous.

This all began with a 2013 press release issued by the agency, in which it sought to "clarify" troubling issues swirling around XKEYSCORE, a secret spy tool first revealed by Marc Ambinder and me, and later confirmed by the Edward Snowden documents. XKEYSCORE is basically the NSA's Google, used for searching through the agency's myriad databases and servers. Because of the sheer volume of data collected by the agency, the program is enormously flexible and allows data to be sliced and cross referenced with other agency tools.

The potential for abuse of such a system is obvious, and amid such Snowden revelations in 2013 as LOVEINT, a practice by some NSA employees in which the awesome power of the "panopticon" is used to spy on ex-lovers, the agency sought to set the record straight.

Read more @ http://theweek.com/articles/615695/heres-latest-travesty-secrecy-from-nsa

 

What You Need To Know: A Primer on Edward Snowden

CBC senior correspondent Laura Lynch will speak with Edward Snowden at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre via web-link on Tuesday, April 5.

Before you go—or tune in on SFU Public Square’s Youtube Channel—here is a quick background of what you should know:

Who is Edward Snowden and what did he do?

Edward Snowden is a former contract computer administrator with theUnited States National Security Agency (NSA). In 2013, he copied and supplied thousands of classified documents detailing U.S. government mass surveillance techniques to journalist Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian newspaper.

Where is Snowden now?

Snowden is wanted by the United States government for espionage. He has been granted temporary political asylum for three years in Moscow. The European Union voted to protect him from extradition within their borders if he leaves Russia.

Why does Snowden matter?

The documents Snowden leaked revealed that NSA had been spying, domestically and abroad, on citizens’ phone and web records. The leaks also showed cooperation from a number of intelligence agencies, including those in Canada and cooperation from some European governments and major global telecommunication companies.

Read more @ https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2016/what-you-need-to-know--a-primer-on-edward-snowden.html

The FBI, Apple, and Why Privacy Matters

Read more @ http://www.business2community.com/brandviews/avvo/fbi-apple-privacy-matters-01506262

 

L.A. Activists Want to Bring Surveillance Conversation Down to Earth

GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE IS not an abstract thing, says Hamid Khan, coordinator for the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition. For the communities Khan works with in Los Angeles — from transgender people to recipients of government benefits to the homeless on Skid Row — surveillance is a daily reality that impacts their lives and exacerbates other societal ills, like mass incarceration and police violence.

Khan’s coalition works to track, publicize, and ultimately dismantle the highly intrusive ways the Los Angeles Police Department surveils the area’s citizens, using an infrastructure of advanced intelligence gathering linked to federal government counterterrorism initiatives.

The LAPD uses big data for “predictive policing,” street cameras with highly accurate facial recognition capabilities, Stingrays, and DRT boxes — which imitate cellphone towers to track nearby phones or jam signals — automatic license plate readers, body cameras, and drones.

“How many different ways are our bodies being constantly tracked, traced, and monitored, not just online?” Khan asked in a phone interview.

Read more @ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/06/l-a-activists-want-to-bring-surveillance-conversation-down-to-earth/

 

NSA’s domestic spying violates US Constitution: Journalist

The US Congress must take measures to end domestic surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) because it is against the Constitution, a journalist and political analyst says.

“It’s high time that someone in the US Congress took some direct action against the NSA for their intrusion into Americans’ privacy and violation of their Second Amendment rights,” said Mike Harris, the financial editor at Veterans Today.

“The NSA was never meant to be a domestic spy organization; the NSA was meant to gather foreign intelligence, not to spy on the American citizenry,” Harris told Press TV on Saturday.

“This is in direct violation against the Second Amendment of free speech and the Fourth Amendment to be safe and secure in one’s housing,” he added.

A couple of US lawmakers have called on the NSA to abandon its planned expansion of domestic spying.

Read more @ http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/03/26/457719/NSA-lawmakers-Mike-Harris/

 

WhatsApp users can now operate without Big Brother peeking in — and it’s partially due to Hillary Clinton

Read more @ http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/whatsapp-users-can-now-operate-without-big-brother-peeking-in-and-its-partially-due-to-hillary-clinton

 

Clapper turns transparency working group into permanent council

The federal intelligence community — a group of 16 agencies with overlapping missions — has been scrambling to build trust with the American populace since one of the IC's former contractors, Edward Snowden, outed a number of sensitive and controversial spy programs.

A major part of this effort is the newly established IC Transparency Council, which had its official charter signing on April 5.

Download: Intelligence Community Transparency Council Charter

The council was born out of a working group created two years ago that established the four Principles of Intelligence Transparency [see below], which “provide guidance to the intelligence community on being more transparent with the public while protecting the sources and methods necessary for performing its national security mission,” according to a post on the IC blog announcing the charter signing.

Read more @ http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/management/2016/04/07/ic-transparency-council/82745390/

 

Edward Snowden urges British public to rise up and force David Cameron to resign over offshore fund

The British Prime Minister has admitted benefitting from an offshore trust

Fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden has put further pressure on David Cameron following the release of the Panama Papers by urging the British public to force his resignation.

Mr Cameron faced a difficult week of questions before he admitted on Thursday to profiting from the sale of shares in an offshore fund. 

Mr Snowden, who resides in Russia – whose leadership has been linked with the Panama Papers revelations – sought to ratchet up the pressure on the PM on social media.

Read more @ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/david-cameron-panama-papers-offshore-fund-edward-snowden-british-public-should-rise-up-and-force-pm-a6974231.html

 

Edward Snowden calls on British people to rise up and demand David Cameron quit as Prime Minister

The fugitive whistleblower urged voters to attend a protest outside Downing Street to force the Prime Minister from office

Edward Snowden has called on the British people to rise up and demand that David Cameron resign.

The fugitive whistleblower urged voters to attend a protest outside Downing Street to force the Prime Minister from office.

In a series of tweets, Mr Snowden , said the next 24 hours "could change Britain."

He suggested the outrage at Mr Cameron's admission that he trousered thousands in profits from his father's offshore fund could spark the same kind of protests that yesterday forced Icelandic PM Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson to quit.

An estimated 10% of Icelandic voters took to the streets on Tuesday night, furious at the revelation that Mr Gunnlaugsson had hidden millions in an offshore fund.

Up to the British public, not us. In #Iceland, 10% of all voters were in the streets within 24 hours, and for less. https://t.co/IkUZztX8WG

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 7, 2016

Mr Snowden tweeted: "It's up to the British people, not us. In Iceland, 10% of all voters were in the streets within 24 hours, and for less."

Responding to people on Twitter saying they "hope Cameron resigns," he said: "With respect, hope is not a strategy."

Read more @ http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/edward-snowden-calls-british-people-7712007

 

What Edward Snowden thinks about the explosive Panama Papers leak

Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistle-blower, has been quite vocal on social media about the Panama Papers leak and the international fallout from the millions of documents released.

He's commented on global leaders involved with the documents, mocking British Prime Minister David Cameron and Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who stepped aside amid the fallout.

With scandals in Russia, China, UK, Iceland, Ukraine, and more, perhaps a new rule: if you're in charge of a country, keep your money in it.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 5, 2016

"If you're in charge of a country, keep your money in it," Snowden tweeted Tuesday,

Cameron was dragged into the scandal about offshore tax havens this week over his late father's connections to an investment fund that avoided paying tax in the United Kingdom by having its directors hold board meetings in Switzerland and the Bahamas rather than in London.

Ian Cameron, a stock broker who died in 2010, was named in the documents stolen from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca. The company set up for Ian Cameron was called Blairmore.

Read more @ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/04/06/david-cameron-edward-snowden-panama-papers/82705208/

 

Panama Papers show world needs whistleblowers, Edward Snowden tells Vancouver audience

Snowden told more than 2,700 people at the Vancouver event that the 2.6 terabytes of data contained in the Panama Papers show how the most privileged and powerful people in the world are operating by a different set of rules.

VANCOUVER—A trove of leaked data about offshore tax havens in Panama highlights more than ever the vital role of the whistleblower in a free society, says one of the tech era’s most prominent figures to expose state secrets.

Edward Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor said Tuesday that the Panama Papers, which were given to journalists by an anonymous source, demonstrate that “change doesn’t happen by itself.”

“The media cannot operate in a vacuum and ... the participation of the public is absolutely necessary to achieving change,” the ex-National Security Agency analyst said during a video conference from Moscow.

Snowden was speaking from exile on a panel organized by Simon Fraser University examining the opportunities and dangers of online data gathering.

The 32-year-old remains wanted by the U.S. government on charges of espionage after leaking classified documents in 2013 as evidence that government spy agencies were monitoring citizens’ telecommunication.

The 11.5 million documents taken from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca reportedly reveal the offshore dealings of more than 100 politicians and public figures from multiple countries.

Read more @ http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/04/06/panama-papers-show-world-needs-whistleblowers-edward-snowden-tells-vancouver-audience.html

 

Just shows that politicians want us all spied on and to know everything about us while they operate in complete secrecy…… 

 

Panama Papers: Edward Snowden ridicules David Cameron over privacy

Whistleblower points out David Cameron had little interest in privacy before tax leak

Edward Snowden has drawn attention to David Cameron’s apparently new interest in privacy, in the wake of questions about his family’s tax affairs.

The Prime Minister avoided questions about his tax situation, following mentions of his father Ian Cameron in the “Panama papers”. Mr Cameron has looked to argue that his tax affairs are not public and so shouldn’t be discussed.

Oh, now he's interested in privacy. https://t.co/jfCSYgensb

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 4, 2016

Sharing a tweet about Mr Cameron’s spokesperson’s comment that his tax affairs are a “private matter”, Mr Snowden suggested that the focus on privacy was a new interest. “Oh, now he’s interested in privacy,” the whistleblower wrote in a tweet that was shared over 18,000 times.

Read more @ http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/panama-papers/panama-papers-edward-snowden-ridicules-david-cameron-over-privacy-34604856.html

 

Edward Snowden Ridicules David Cameron For Defending ‘Private’ Matter Of Panama Papers Leak

Read more @ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/edward-snowden-ridicules-david-cameron-for-defending-private-matter-of-panama-papers-leak_uk_57039d27e4b069ef5c00cdb2

 

Panama papers: David Cameron had little interest in privacy before tax leaks, Edward Snowden points out

Read more @ http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/panama-papers-david-cameron-had-little-interest-in-privacy-before-tax-leaks-edward-snowden-points-a6969706.html

 

The rich play by their own rules is something I have been saying all along…. Having rubbed shoulders with some in my lifetime and seen it for myself.

Edward Snowden: Panama Papers leak proves the rich play by their own rules

'They don't even pay the same taxes as we do'

VANCOUVER -- A trove of leaked data about offshore tax havens in Panama highlights more than ever the vital role of the whistleblower in a free society, says one of the tech era's most prominent figures to expose state secrets, Edward Snowden.

The former U.S. intelligence contractor said Tuesday that the so-called Panama Papers, which were given to journalists by an anonymous source, demonstrate that "change doesn't happen by itself."

"The media cannot operate in a vacuum and ... the participation of the public is absolutely necessary to achieving change," the ex-National Security Agency analyst said during a video conference from Moscow.

Snowden was speaking from exile on a panel organized by Simon Fraser University examining the opportunities and dangers of online data gathering.

The 32-year-old remains wanted by the U.S. government on charges of espionage after leaking classified documents in 2013 as evidence that government spy agencies were monitoring citizens' telecommunication.

The 11.5 million documents taken from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca reportedly reveal the offshore dealings of more than 100 politicians and public figures from multiple countries.

Snowden told more than 2,700 people at the Vancouver event that the 2.6 terabytes of data contained in the papers demonstrate the most privileged and powerful people in the world are operating by a different set of rules.

Read more @ http://www.torontosun.com/2016/04/06/edward-snowden-panama-papers-leak-proves-the-rich-play-by-their-own-rules


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