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Jun 5 15 8:05 PM
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Jun 5 15 11:22 PM
icepick wrote:Here's where even his followers have him now:http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obama-george-w-bush-popular-isis/2015/06/03/id/648362/Lying doesn't pay.BTW, you should check your vaccine thread. I found something for you.
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
Jun 6 15 10:31 AM
icepick wrote:Not that I know of. If somebody high up is determined to hide things, they're usually hid.
Jun 6 15 11:50 AM
Jun 7 15 10:25 AM
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/world/north-america/2015/06/06/rights-rand-paul-talks-down-data-laws/14335128001963
Jun 7 15 10:30 AM
Edward Snowden in NYT: 'Power of an Informed Public' Stopped NSA
Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who two years ago on Thursday leaked stolen information on the agency's metadata programs, says "the power of an informed public" led to the dismantling of the mass surveillance programs. "Ending the mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen, but it is only the latest product of a change in global awareness," Snowden, who continues to live under temporary political asylum in Russia, wrote in an op-ed piece in The New York Times. Besides his former post at the NSA, Snowden is described at the bottom of the piece as "a former Central Intelligence Agency officer" and "a director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation." The NSA surveillance programs began under the Patriot Act, which was signed into law by former President George W. Bush in response to the 9/11 attacks. The law expired on Monday, and Congress approved the USA Freedom Act the next day. That law limits the bulk data the government can collect and requires a specific search warrant to collect the information from telephone companies. "Though we have come a long way, the right to privacy — the foundation of the freedoms enshrined in the United States Bill of Rights — remains under threat," Snowden said. He noted that many popular online data companies "have been enlisted as partners in the NSA's mass surveillance programs, and technology companies are being pressured by governments around the world to work against their customers rather than for them. "Metadata revealing the personal associations and interests of ordinary Internet users is still being intercepted and monitored on a scale unprecedented in history: As you read this online, the United States government makes a note," Snowden said. However, the outrage from ordinary citizens that led to the end of the Patriot Act points to "the emergence of a post-terror generation, one that rejects a worldview defined by a singular tragedy," he said.
Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who two years ago on Thursday leaked stolen information on the agency's metadata programs, says "the power of an informed public" led to the dismantling of the mass surveillance programs. "Ending the mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen, but it is only the latest product of a change in global awareness," Snowden, who continues to live under temporary political asylum in Russia, wrote in an op-ed piece in The New York Times. Besides his former post at the NSA, Snowden is described at the bottom of the piece as "a former Central Intelligence Agency officer" and "a director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation." The NSA surveillance programs began under the Patriot Act, which was signed into law by former President George W. Bush in response to the 9/11 attacks. The law expired on Monday, and Congress approved the USA Freedom Act the next day. That law limits the bulk data the government can collect and requires a specific search warrant to collect the information from telephone companies. "Though we have come a long way, the right to privacy — the foundation of the freedoms enshrined in the United States Bill of Rights — remains under threat," Snowden said.
He noted that many popular online data companies "have been enlisted as partners in the NSA's mass surveillance programs, and technology companies are being pressured by governments around the world to work against their customers rather than for them. "Metadata revealing the personal associations and interests of ordinary Internet users is still being intercepted and monitored on a scale unprecedented in history: As you read this online, the United States government makes a note," Snowden said. However, the outrage from ordinary citizens that led to the end of the Patriot Act points to "the emergence of a post-terror generation, one that rejects a worldview defined by a singular tragedy," he said.
Read more @ http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/edward-snowden-informed-public-stop/2015/06/04/id/648883/
Read more @ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-to-surveillance.html?_r=0
There has already been articles over the past two years in legal cases to say there was abuse, if I remember correctly….
After weeks of political hand-wringing, the Patriot Act is out and the USA Freedom Act is in. But despite substantial support from both parties, the sweeping national security reform is not without critics. Chief among them is Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who unsuccessfully lobbied to extend bulk metadata collection authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The metadata program, which allowed National Security Agency officials to collect phone data such as call length and the phone numbers involved, started in 2006 and was kept top secret until Edward Snowden famously exposed it and other NSA information-gathering initiatives in 2013. The USA Freedom Act, meanwhile, forces the NSA to subpoena phone records from phone companies instead of collecting the data directly. Rubio argued to keep the metadata program as is in a USA Today op-ed May 10. “There is not a single documented case of abuse of this program,” Rubio wrote. “Internet search providers, Internet-based email accounts, credit card companies and membership discount cards used at the grocery store all collect far more personal information on Americans than the bulk metadata program.”
After weeks of political hand-wringing, the Patriot Act is out and the USA Freedom Act is in. But despite substantial support from both parties, the sweeping national security reform is not without critics.
Chief among them is Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who unsuccessfully lobbied to extend bulk metadata collection authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
The metadata program, which allowed National Security Agency officials to collect phone data such as call length and the phone numbers involved, started in 2006 and was kept top secret until Edward Snowden famously exposed it and other NSA information-gathering initiatives in 2013.
The USA Freedom Act, meanwhile, forces the NSA to subpoena phone records from phone companies instead of collecting the data directly.
Rubio argued to keep the metadata program as is in a USA Today op-ed May 10.
“There is not a single documented case of abuse of this program,” Rubio wrote. “Internet search providers, Internet-based email accounts, credit card companies and membership discount cards used at the grocery store all collect far more personal information on Americans than the bulk metadata program.”
Read more @ http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article23306610.html
That is an excellent analogy used by Snowden…. I experience it often in supermarkets…. Is the product, gluten free, carb free, aspartame free, gm free….? I stand reading labels and shopping always takes a lot of time. Many times I walk out in frustration with nothing. And I know a woman with triple the allergies I have so I can’t imagine how frustrating it is for her. Collecting all the information of millions and millions of people would be a pure and utter waste of taxpayer’s money…. Not just in the time wasted, but also paying staff to do it and they earn very big money.
AS MEMBERS OF CONGRESS struggle to agree on which surveillance programs to re-authorize before the Patriot Act expires, they might consider the unusual advice of an intelligence analyst at the National Security Agency who warned about the danger of collecting too much data. Imagine, the analyst wrote in a leaked document, that you are standing in a shopping aisle trying to decide between jam, jelly or fruit spread, which size, sugar-free or not, generic or Smucker’s. It can be paralyzing. “We in the agency are at risk of a similar, collective paralysis in the face of a dizzying array of choices every single day,” the analyst wrote in 2011. “’Analysis paralysis’ isn’t only a cute rhyme. It’s the term for what happens when you spend so much time analyzing a situation that you ultimately stymie any outcome …. It’s what happens in SIGINT [signals intelligence] when we have access to endless possibilities, but we struggle to prioritize, narrow, and exploit the best ones.” The document is one of about a dozen in which NSA intelligence experts express concerns usually heard from the agency’s critics: that the U.S. government’s “collect it all” strategy can undermine the effort to fight terrorism. The documents, provided to The Intercept by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, appear to contradict years of statements from senior officials who have claimed that pervasive surveillance of global communications helps the government identify terrorists before they strike or quickly find them after an attack.
AS MEMBERS OF CONGRESS struggle to agree on which surveillance programs to re-authorize before the Patriot Act expires, they might consider the unusual advice of an intelligence analyst at the National Security Agency who warned about the danger of collecting too much data. Imagine, the analyst wrote in a leaked document, that you are standing in a shopping aisle trying to decide between jam, jelly or fruit spread, which size, sugar-free or not, generic or Smucker’s. It can be paralyzing.
“We in the agency are at risk of a similar, collective paralysis in the face of a dizzying array of choices every single day,” the analyst wrote in 2011. “’Analysis paralysis’ isn’t only a cute rhyme. It’s the term for what happens when you spend so much time analyzing a situation that you ultimately stymie any outcome …. It’s what happens in SIGINT [signals intelligence] when we have access to endless possibilities, but we struggle to prioritize, narrow, and exploit the best ones.”
The document is one of about a dozen in which NSA intelligence experts express concerns usually heard from the agency’s critics: that the U.S. government’s “collect it all” strategy can undermine the effort to fight terrorism. The documents, provided to The Intercept by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, appear to contradict years of statements from senior officials who have claimed that pervasive surveillance of global communications helps the government identify terrorists before they strike or quickly find them after an attack.
Read more @ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/28/nsa-officials-privately-criticize-collect-it-all-surveillance/
Bernardi speaks against Abbott’s ‘power creep’. Terror talk of citizenship oath unsettles migrants. Nuclear Iran deal affects IS fight. Emboldened Eurosceptics evoke ‘Anglosphere’. Like Magellan making the first voyage around the world to show that it is indeed round, some politicians are demonstrating that if you go way out on the right you can end up on the left, or at least temporarily in leftish company. Take Rand Paul, the US libertarian senator and Tea Party supporter who’s just declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination next year. His splendid filibusters in the senate, including a 10-hour speech, saw the metadata collection by the National Security Agency halt at midnight on Sunday, or at least become illegal if it didn’t. Standing against his Republican leadership, Paul opposed extension of the metadata powers enabled by the so-called Patriot Act, passed a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda followers and extended a couple of times since. “Little by little, we’ve allowed our freedom to slip away,” he declared, thereby putting himself in alignment with civil libertarians usually found on the Democrat side of US politics. They’ve been incensed by the level of NSA domestic espionage exposed two years ago by renegade agency contractor Edward Snowden. The electronic spy agency had been using a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court interpretation of a clause in the Patriot Act to justify its collection of domestic communication data without warrants or even particular suspicion. Despite a federal court ruling that this was unconstitutional, security hawks had been ready to extend it. By Tuesday, mainstream Republicans and some Democrats filled the gap with the new Freedom Act, supported by President Barack Obama, which requires telephone companies and internet service providers, rather than the NSA, to store metadata for at least 18 months and provide it on warrant. There is a six-month switchover period, in which the NSA can get its vacuum-cleaners operating again if it wants. Has the US been at greater risk during this hiatus? The NSA and its supporters haven’t been able to show the indiscriminate approach to call and browsing records has yielded any further protection than would normal searches on warrants that are usually provided promptly by judges when investigators get a lead on a planned act of terrorism or after an attack. Nor, to give the spooks some credit, has the metadata power been abused J. Edgar Hoover-style to collect dirt on citizens their chiefs don’t like. It’s been a worrying broadening of power without much need. While the Americans are winding back these excessive powers enacted after the 9/11 panic, Australia is going in the other direction, after a deranged loner took hostages in a Sydney cafe and a knife attack in Melbourne by a teenager. Our new metadata regime approximates the US Freedom Act, though we don’t have anything like the American level of protection for journalists and other citizens investigating abuses, and the Abbott government has made it clear that whistleblowers and leakers will be among the targets. But the NSA and its counterparts in the Five Eyes electronic intelligence network retain a nifty way around restrictions on domestic eavesdropping. They’re all still empowered to collect both metadata and content on communications by non-citizens outside their jurisdiction, so they can swap data with other countries on each other’s citizens.
Bernardi speaks against Abbott’s ‘power creep’. Terror talk of citizenship oath unsettles migrants. Nuclear Iran deal affects IS fight. Emboldened Eurosceptics evoke ‘Anglosphere’.
Like Magellan making the first voyage around the world to show that it is indeed round, some politicians are demonstrating that if you go way out on the right you can end up on the left, or at least temporarily in leftish company.
Take Rand Paul, the US libertarian senator and Tea Party supporter who’s just declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination next year. His splendid filibusters in the senate, including a 10-hour speech, saw the metadata collection by the National Security Agency halt at midnight on Sunday, or at least become illegal if it didn’t.
Standing against his Republican leadership, Paul opposed extension of the metadata powers enabled by the so-called Patriot Act, passed a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda followers and extended a couple of times since. “Little by little, we’ve allowed our freedom to slip away,” he declared, thereby putting himself in alignment with civil libertarians usually found on the Democrat side of US politics. They’ve been incensed by the level of NSA domestic espionage exposed two years ago by renegade agency contractor Edward Snowden. The electronic spy agency had been using a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court interpretation of a clause in the Patriot Act to justify its collection of domestic communication data without warrants or even particular suspicion. Despite a federal court ruling that this was unconstitutional, security hawks had been ready to extend it.
By Tuesday, mainstream Republicans and some Democrats filled the gap with the new Freedom Act, supported by President Barack Obama, which requires telephone companies and internet service providers, rather than the NSA, to store metadata for at least 18 months and provide it on warrant. There is a six-month switchover period, in which the NSA can get its vacuum-cleaners operating again if it wants.
Has the US been at greater risk during this hiatus? The NSA and its supporters haven’t been able to show the indiscriminate approach to call and browsing records has yielded any further protection than would normal searches on warrants that are usually provided promptly by judges when investigators get a lead on a planned act of terrorism or after an attack. Nor, to give the spooks some credit, has the metadata power been abused J. Edgar Hoover-style to collect dirt on citizens their chiefs don’t like. It’s been a worrying broadening of power without much need.
While the Americans are winding back these excessive powers enacted after the 9/11 panic, Australia is going in the other direction, after a deranged loner took hostages in a Sydney cafe and a knife attack in Melbourne by a teenager. Our new metadata regime approximates the US Freedom Act, though we don’t have anything like the American level of protection for journalists and other citizens investigating abuses, and the Abbott government has made it clear that whistleblowers and leakers will be among the targets.
But the NSA and its counterparts in the Five Eyes electronic intelligence network retain a nifty way around restrictions on domestic eavesdropping. They’re all still empowered to collect both metadata and content on communications by non-citizens outside their jurisdiction, so they can swap data with other countries on each other’s citizens.
Read more @ https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/world/north-america/2015/06/06/rights-rand-paul-talks-down-data-laws/14335128001963
Now that Congress has passed, and President Obama has signed, the U.S.A. Freedom Act, which places some limits on the domestic-surveillance powers of the National Security Agency, there’s still unfinished business to deal with. The new legislation, while it is commendable as far as it goes, contains some obvious shortcomings. Barring the N.S.A. from collecting and holding the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans was a necessary step, but it won’t make much difference if the result is that the phone companies hold on to the data and secret courts enable the N.S.A. to access it virtually at will. The legislation leaves on the books a law from 1986 that allows the government to read any e-mail that is more than six months old, and it doesn’t change Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which the N.S.A. has used to justify collecting not just metadata, such as phone records, but the actual contents of communications, such as e-mails and online chats. Another matter still at hand is the fate of Edward Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor who has been languishing in Vladimir Putin’s Russia for almost two years. In a statement that President Obama issued shortly before signing the new law, he said, “For the past eighteen months, I have called for reforms that better safeguard the privacy and civil liberties of the American people while ensuring our national security officials retain tools important to keeping Americans safe … enactment of this legislation will strengthen civil liberty safeguards and provide greater public confidence in these programs.” Nowhere did the President or the new law’s sponsors on Capitol Hill state the blindingly obvious: that if it hadn’t been for Snowden’s leaks, the intelligence agencies’ excesses would never have come to light, the U.S.A. Freedom Act wouldn’t exist, and the N.S.A. would still be merrily sweeping up phone records and analyzing them as it saw fit. (My colleague Mattathias Schwartz argued last week that Snowden shouldn’t have been necessary.) Instead of thanking Snowden for his public service and inviting him to come home, the U.S. government is still seeking to arrest him and try him on charges that carry long prison sentences. “The fact is that Mr. Snowden committed very serious crimes,” the White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday. “The U.S. government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them.”
Now that Congress has passed, and President Obama has signed, the U.S.A. Freedom Act, which places some limits on the domestic-surveillance powers of the National Security Agency, there’s still unfinished business to deal with.
The new legislation, while it is commendable as far as it goes, contains some obvious shortcomings. Barring the N.S.A. from collecting and holding the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans was a necessary step, but it won’t make much difference if the result is that the phone companies hold on to the data and secret courts enable the N.S.A. to access it virtually at will. The legislation leaves on the books a law from 1986 that allows the government to read any e-mail that is more than six months old, and it doesn’t change Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which the N.S.A. has used to justify collecting not just metadata, such as phone records, but the actual contents of communications, such as e-mails and online chats.
Another matter still at hand is the fate of Edward Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor who has been languishing in Vladimir Putin’s Russia for almost two years. In a statement that President Obama issued shortly before signing the new law, he said, “For the past eighteen months, I have called for reforms that better safeguard the privacy and civil liberties of the American people while ensuring our national security officials retain tools important to keeping Americans safe … enactment of this legislation will strengthen civil liberty safeguards and provide greater public confidence in these programs.” Nowhere did the President or the new law’s sponsors on Capitol Hill state the blindingly obvious: that if it hadn’t been for Snowden’s leaks, the intelligence agencies’ excesses would never have come to light, the U.S.A. Freedom Act wouldn’t exist, and the N.S.A. would still be merrily sweeping up phone records and analyzing them as it saw fit. (My colleague Mattathias Schwartz argued last week that Snowden shouldn’t have been necessary.)
Instead of thanking Snowden for his public service and inviting him to come home, the U.S. government is still seeking to arrest him and try him on charges that carry long prison sentences. “The fact is that Mr. Snowden committed very serious crimes,” the White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday. “The U.S. government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them.”
Read more @ http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/its-time-to-let-edward-snowden-come-home
Sceptics would say surveillance changes are largely cosmetic and will scarcely inhibit state agencies, while offering some veneer of a response to civil rights critics The US authorities have moved partially to undo the broad surveillance powers acquired in the wake of the 9/11 attack 14 years ago. The passage through the Senate of the USA Freedom Act on Tuesday, and signed yesterday by President Obama, marks a significant reappraisal of, and public uneasiness at, the wide powers of the National Security Agency (NSA) whose activities, specifically the bulk collection of phone records, were put under a spotlight in 2013 by former agency contractor, whistleblower Edward Snowden, now resident in Moscow. The debate brought out complaints – notably from the majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) – that the dilution of the Patriot Act would allow terrorism to flourish, while others warned that the government would use the new legislation to pry into medical records and spy on legitimate political groups. Repeated studies, according to the media, have however found no evidence of intentional abuse for personal or political gain, but also no evidence that the NSA programme had ever thwarted a terrorist attack. A federal appeals court recently ruled, however, that the NSA’s widespread phone record mining of “metadata” was unlawful.
The US authorities have moved partially to undo the broad surveillance powers acquired in the wake of the 9/11 attack 14 years ago. The passage through the Senate of the USA Freedom Act on Tuesday, and signed yesterday by President Obama, marks a significant reappraisal of, and public uneasiness at, the wide powers of the National Security Agency (NSA) whose activities, specifically the bulk collection of phone records, were put under a spotlight in 2013 by former agency contractor, whistleblower Edward Snowden, now resident in Moscow.
The debate brought out complaints – notably from the majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) – that the dilution of the Patriot Act would allow terrorism to flourish, while others warned that the government would use the new legislation to pry into medical records and spy on legitimate political groups. Repeated studies, according to the media, have however found no evidence of intentional abuse for personal or political gain, but also no evidence that the NSA programme had ever thwarted a terrorist attack. A federal appeals court recently ruled, however, that the NSA’s widespread phone record mining of “metadata” was unlawful.
Read more @ http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/us-wrestles-with-snowden-legacy-1.2236256
Excerpts:
Don’t say that name: Federal prosecutors in a Chicago terrorism case want to bar the defendant’s lawyers from mentioning the name “Edward Snowden” at trial, the Intercept reports. “A juror’s opinion on Edward Snowden, the NSA, or any other issue regarding the government’s collection of evidence against the defendant has no place in this trial,” government lawyers wrote in a court filing in the case against Adel Daoud, whose lawyers challenged the government’s surveillance. Snowden, marking the two-year anniversary of his leaks, wrote this op-ed for the NYT on Thursday. Expanded surveillance: A New York Times-Pro Publica report: “Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents. In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two secret memos permitting the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet cables, without a warrant and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions originating abroad—including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the documents show.” More surveillance news: Federal prosecutors in California want a judge to overturn a decision requiring the government to get a warrant to obtain cell tower records, NLJ affiliate The Recorder reports.
Don’t say that name: Federal prosecutors in a Chicago terrorism case want to bar the defendant’s lawyers from mentioning the name “Edward Snowden” at trial, the Intercept reports. “A juror’s opinion on Edward Snowden, the NSA, or any other issue regarding the government’s collection of evidence against the defendant has no place in this trial,” government lawyers wrote in a court filing in the case against Adel Daoud, whose lawyers challenged the government’s surveillance. Snowden, marking the two-year anniversary of his leaks, wrote this op-ed for the NYT on Thursday.
Expanded surveillance: A New York Times-Pro Publica report: “Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents. In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two secret memos permitting the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet cables, without a warrant and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions originating abroad—including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the documents show.” More surveillance news: Federal prosecutors in California want a judge to overturn a decision requiring the government to get a warrant to obtain cell tower records, NLJ affiliate The Recorder reports.
Read more @ http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/id=1202728451304/Morning-Wrap-Data-Breach-at-OPM--FIFA-Scores-Quinn-Emanuel--Scalia-Nothing-Unprecedented?slreturn=20150506202125
May 29, 2015 Fast approaching is the June 1 expiration of certain provisions of the Patriot Act, including § 215, (codified as 50 U.S.C § 1861), which is the basis for the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) bulk telephone metadata collection program. The future of the program is unclear in light of ACLU, et al. v. Clapper, et al., a recent Second Circuit decision that struck down the program as illegal under § 215, and the continued turmoil in Congress regarding efforts to reform or renew the Patriot Act. In ACLU v. Clapper, the Second Circuit overturned the district court’s dismissal of ACLU’s complaint, ruling that the NSA’s telephone metadata program was illegal under § 215. The program first came to light in 2013 after former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents exposing its details to a British newspaper. The NSA has since admitted that the program has been in place since at least May 2006. Under the program, numerous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) orders were issued to various telephone companies ordering the production of all “call-detail records” or “telephony metadata” on an “ongoing daily basis.” Clapper at **13-15. NSA compiled the data into a database that was accessed and searched when a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” arose that a telephone number was associated with a foreign terrorist organization. Id. The court found that the telephone metadata program was too broad in that it “requires that the phone companies turn over records on an ‘ongoing daily basis’ – with no foreseeable end point, no requirement of relevance to any particular set of facts, and no limitations as to subject matter or individuals covered.” Id. at **63-64. The court further held that the telephone metadata program ignored a requirement in § 215 that the collection be tied to an authorized investigation, since it compiles such data “in advance of the need to conduct any inquiry (or even to examine the data), and is based on no evidence of any current connection between the data being sought and any existing inquiry.” Id. at *72. The court further noted, in rejecting the government’s attempt to expand the meaning of “relevancy” in § 215 that “[s]uch a monumental shift in our approach to combating terrorism requires a clearer signal from Congress than a recycling of oft-used language long held in similar contexts to mean something far narrower.” Id. at 75. The court declined to address the constitutionality of § 215 and was careful to avoid opining on the constitutionality of any potential alternative versions of the program that could be crafted by Congress.
May 29, 2015
Fast approaching is the June 1 expiration of certain provisions of the Patriot Act, including § 215, (codified as 50 U.S.C § 1861), which is the basis for the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) bulk telephone metadata collection program. The future of the program is unclear in light of ACLU, et al. v. Clapper, et al., a recent Second Circuit decision that struck down the program as illegal under § 215, and the continued turmoil in Congress regarding efforts to reform or renew the Patriot Act.
In ACLU v. Clapper, the Second Circuit overturned the district court’s dismissal of ACLU’s complaint, ruling that the NSA’s telephone metadata program was illegal under § 215. The program first came to light in 2013 after former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents exposing its details to a British newspaper. The NSA has since admitted that the program has been in place since at least May 2006. Under the program, numerous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) orders were issued to various telephone companies ordering the production of all “call-detail records” or “telephony metadata” on an “ongoing daily basis.” Clapper at **13-15. NSA compiled the data into a database that was accessed and searched when a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” arose that a telephone number was associated with a foreign terrorist organization. Id.
The court found that the telephone metadata program was too broad in that it “requires that the phone companies turn over records on an ‘ongoing daily basis’ – with no foreseeable end point, no requirement of relevance to any particular set of facts, and no limitations as to subject matter or individuals covered.” Id. at **63-64. The court further held that the telephone metadata program ignored a requirement in § 215 that the collection be tied to an authorized investigation, since it compiles such data “in advance of the need to conduct any inquiry (or even to examine the data), and is based on no evidence of any current connection between the data being sought and any existing inquiry.” Id. at *72. The court further noted, in rejecting the government’s attempt to expand the meaning of “relevancy” in § 215 that “[s]uch a monumental shift in our approach to combating terrorism requires a clearer signal from Congress than a recycling of oft-used language long held in similar contexts to mean something far narrower.” Id. at 75. The court declined to address the constitutionality of § 215 and was careful to avoid opining on the constitutionality of any potential alternative versions of the program that could be crafted by Congress.
Read more @ http://www.mcguirewoods.com/Client-Resources/Alerts/2015/5/Future-Unclear-NSA-Bulk-Telephone-Metadata-Collection.aspx?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=View-Original
Raw Story reports that yesterday the Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression awarded the Bjornson Prize to Edward Snowden “for his work protecting privacy and for shining a critical light on US surveillance of its citizens and others.” Bjornson was a Norwegian poet and champion of peasant farmers who was known for his passionate call-to-action speeches. He spoke truth to power and was forced to flee Norway to avoid arrest and prosecution for High Treason in the late 1870s, but was welcomed back in 1882. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1903 and is regarded as a national hero in Norway. The prize also includes a 100,000 Kronen award ($12,700). Last year Snowden was awarded Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award and he has been nominated again this year to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. I can think of no one who is more deserving, except possibly Chelsea Manning. Even though the secret NSA bulk metadata collection program that Snowden publicly disclosed has been declared unlawful and eliminated by the Freedom Act, the Obama Administration continues to vilify him as a traitor and claim that his disclosures have harmed the United States. Of course, there is no evidence to support that claim. Nevertheless, unlike Bjornson, who was welcomed back by his native Norway after tempers cooled, the Obama Administration and its Department of Justice remain stubbornly committed to prosecuting Snowden for allegedly violating the 1917 Espionage Act that Congress passed to criminalize spying on behalf of foreign powers, namely Germany. The charge is utterly ridiculous and the Obama Administration should have the decency to drop it and welcome him back. He is a true patriot and genuine American hero.
Raw Story reports that yesterday the Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression awarded the Bjornson Prize to Edward Snowden “for his work protecting privacy and for shining a critical light on US surveillance of its citizens and others.” Bjornson was a Norwegian poet and champion of peasant farmers who was known for his passionate call-to-action speeches. He spoke truth to power and was forced to flee Norway to avoid arrest and prosecution for High Treason in the late 1870s, but was welcomed back in 1882. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1903 and is regarded as a national hero in Norway. The prize also includes a 100,000 Kronen award ($12,700).
Last year Snowden was awarded Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award and he has been nominated again this year to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. I can think of no one who is more deserving, except possibly Chelsea Manning.
Even though the secret NSA bulk metadata collection program that Snowden publicly disclosed has been declared unlawful and eliminated by the Freedom Act, the Obama Administration continues to vilify him as a traitor and claim that his disclosures have harmed the United States. Of course, there is no evidence to support that claim. Nevertheless, unlike Bjornson, who was welcomed back by his native Norway after tempers cooled, the Obama Administration and its Department of Justice remain stubbornly committed to prosecuting Snowden for allegedly violating the 1917 Espionage Act that Congress passed to criminalize spying on behalf of foreign powers, namely Germany.
The charge is utterly ridiculous and the Obama Administration should have the decency to drop it and welcome him back. He is a true patriot and genuine American hero.
Read more @ http://firedoglake.com/2015/06/03/edward-snowden-awarded-norways-bjornson-prize-for-freedom-of-expression/
Are they forgetting that the NSA flooded the internet with Malaware and also put Malaware into companies computers in transit to the companies? You can search back through the threads on the spying to find the stories about it.
One Expert Says Program Seeks Info on Malware, Not People The National Security Agency secretly expanded its warrantless surveillance of Americans' international Internet traffic to seek evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Pro Publica and The New York Times report. See Also: Fighting Financial Fraud: Mitigation for Malware, Phishing & DDoS Attacks Two secret Justice Department memos, written in mid-2012, deemed as legal the search of Internet communications, without warrants and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions emanating from abroad, including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the publications reported on June 4, citing the Snowden documents leaked two years ago. The Justice Department allowed the agency to monitor only addresses and "cyber-signatures" - patterns associated with computer intrusions - which it could tie to foreign governments, according to the news reports. But the leaked documents also note that the NSA sought to target hackers even when it could not establish any links to foreign powers. Packets, Not People? Martin Libicki, a national security and information technology scholar at the Rand Corp., a think tank, says the NSA program, as described in the news reports, seems to be focused on searching for malware by applying a version of the Department of Homeland Security's Einstein intrusion prevention system. "In other words," he says, "this isn't about people but packets."
The National Security Agency secretly expanded its warrantless surveillance of Americans' international Internet traffic to seek evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Pro Publica and The New York Times report.
See Also: Fighting Financial Fraud: Mitigation for Malware, Phishing & DDoS Attacks
Two secret Justice Department memos, written in mid-2012, deemed as legal the search of Internet communications, without warrants and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions emanating from abroad, including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the publications reported on June 4, citing the Snowden documents leaked two years ago.
The Justice Department allowed the agency to monitor only addresses and "cyber-signatures" - patterns associated with computer intrusions - which it could tie to foreign governments, according to the news reports. But the leaked documents also note that the NSA sought to target hackers even when it could not establish any links to foreign powers.
Martin Libicki, a national security and information technology scholar at the Rand Corp., a think tank, says the NSA program, as described in the news reports, seems to be focused on searching for malware by applying a version of the Department of Homeland Security's Einstein intrusion prevention system. "In other words," he says, "this isn't about people but packets."
Read more @ http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/report-nsa-expands-internet-spying-a-8287
Jun 7 15 10:36 AM
Jun 7 15 11:07 AM
icepick wrote:Hi Pen;Yes, I knew that a couple of days ago. The only benefit we received is that it really is limited to metadata. But we also know what politician stands where .................... and Rand Paul has gained a huge number of very loyal fans. Seems our other pols would take notice.Sounds like you have one down there from the same vein. If so, cherish him. Seems their type is very rare these days.Tim
Bernardi speaks against Abbott’s ‘power creep’
Jun 7 15 11:44 AM
Jun 8 15 7:11 AM
The Surveillance State is nothing new and we’ve only “seen the tip of the iceberg” according to U.S. representative Loretta Sanchez. “Should we be shocked” asks Ron Paul who in 1984 warned us about Orwell’s “1984“. The only thing new about the Surveillance State is their supra-enhanced ability to survey and manage their livestock. The designation of livestock is not intended to be derogatory to the world’s subject class (non-ruling classes). If you truly understood the relationship between the subject and ruling classes then you would know that in their eyes we are nothing more than livestock to be managed and utilized as such. And to do nothing about the current state of affairs between them is to affirm and reinforce that relationship. While the majority of the world’s population has been using the internet for more trivial pursuits the Imperial World System has been busy devising Internet technologies to better manage their livestock. And they use the money extorted from their cash cows in the form of taxes of every sort to build such systems. Could you dream of a better parasitic relationship? The Corporate State parasite is so clever as to induct its hosts to willingly and even pridefully supply the labor and materials the State needs to effectively manage their hosts. In other words the subject class gleefully supplies the labor and materials for their own cages. The subject class has been conditioned over generations to be willing hosts and sacrificial lambs to the State parasite. The TITANIC Imperial World System, presently all governments of the world with the exception of Iceland and a handful of others know that if they don’t use the Internet against us then the Internet will eventually be the iceberg that sinks them. We are first and foremost engaged in an information war. Prior to the Internet there was no contest because the State and its pet parrot, the corporate news system, were the sole sources of mass information broadcasts. That has changed and they have been scrambling like rats on a sinking ship for a way to stay afloat. At present the oppressive State System seems invincible and they might be if sufficient members of the subject class do not overcome their apathy. Fortunately, there are some self-defense measures for those ready to a least make it more difficult for the State to look in your pants or under your dress. That is and isn’t a figure of speech for they have ways of remotely activating the camera on any device connected to the internet. The German Government was caught installing softlware on its citizen’s computers that could activate its camera and microphone among other things. The FBI is known to remotely activate a phone’s microphone. The State Lullaby: “If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.” Please don’t be lulled into passive submission by such a sinister rational. The State justifies their invasive abuse of power by claiming that they must do so in order to “stop terrorism”. Something we know is nothing more than a false flag scheme to justify the existence of trillion dollar wars budgets and the Military Industrial Complex. Their lullaby means that only terrorists and other “wrong doer’s” have something to fear from unbridled State surveillance programs. We must remember that the State will and does sustain itself by any and all means possible. And that includes suppressing, criminalizing and killing dissenters. Aside from that it uses every bit of information gleaned from us to turn us into bigger consumers and more compliant subjects. Fortunately, a small but growing segment of the population knows that the State thrives on the public’s ignorance of the State’s hideous and diabolical nature. Those no longer under the State spell are working to dismantle it and they are among the State’s primary surveillance targets. Those who are working to break down the State’s matrix of systematic exploitation represent the future humankind if it has one. That is; a future worth looking forward to. So if the State is continually successful as extracting all of the information it needs to better manage the subject class and crush dissent then there is no future worth looking forward to. And if you do nothing to at least hinder the State’s ability to parasitize and invade you in every which way then consider yourself already parasitized to the point of apathy and self absorption. Meaning that the State and its corporate media complex has effectively neutralized you.
The Surveillance State is nothing new and we’ve only “seen the tip of the iceberg” according to U.S. representative Loretta Sanchez. “Should we be shocked” asks Ron Paul who in 1984 warned us about Orwell’s “1984“. The only thing new about the Surveillance State is their supra-enhanced ability to survey and manage their livestock. The designation of livestock is not intended to be derogatory to the world’s subject class (non-ruling classes).
If you truly understood the relationship between the subject and ruling classes then you would know that in their eyes we are nothing more than livestock to be managed and utilized as such. And to do nothing about the current state of affairs between them is to affirm and reinforce that relationship.
While the majority of the world’s population has been using the internet for more trivial pursuits the Imperial World System has been busy devising Internet technologies to better manage their livestock. And they use the money extorted from their cash cows in the form of taxes of every sort to build such systems. Could you dream of a better parasitic relationship?
The Corporate State parasite is so clever as to induct its hosts to willingly and even pridefully supply the labor and materials the State needs to effectively manage their hosts. In other words the subject class gleefully supplies the labor and materials for their own cages. The subject class has been conditioned over generations to be willing hosts and sacrificial lambs to the State parasite.
The TITANIC Imperial World System, presently all governments of the world with the exception of Iceland and a handful of others know that if they don’t use the Internet against us then the Internet will eventually be the iceberg that sinks them. We are first and foremost engaged in an information war. Prior to the Internet there was no contest because the State and its pet parrot, the corporate news system, were the sole sources of mass information broadcasts. That has changed and they have been scrambling like rats on a sinking ship for a way to stay afloat.
At present the oppressive State System seems invincible and they might be if sufficient members of the subject class do not overcome their apathy. Fortunately, there are some self-defense measures for those ready to a least make it more difficult for the State to look in your pants or under your dress. That is and isn’t a figure of speech for they have ways of remotely activating the camera on any device connected to the internet. The German Government was caught installing softlware on its citizen’s computers that could activate its camera and microphone among other things. The FBI is known to remotely activate a phone’s microphone.
The State Lullaby: “If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.”
Please don’t be lulled into passive submission by such a sinister rational. The State justifies their invasive abuse of power by claiming that they must do so in order to “stop terrorism”. Something we know is nothing more than a false flag scheme to justify the existence of trillion dollar wars budgets and the Military Industrial Complex.
Their lullaby means that only terrorists and other “wrong doer’s” have something to fear from unbridled State surveillance programs. We must remember that the State will and does sustain itself by any and all means possible. And that includes suppressing, criminalizing and killing dissenters. Aside from that it uses every bit of information gleaned from us to turn us into bigger consumers and more compliant subjects.
Fortunately, a small but growing segment of the population knows that the State thrives on the public’s ignorance of the State’s hideous and diabolical nature. Those no longer under the State spell are working to dismantle it and they are among the State’s primary surveillance targets. Those who are working to break down the State’s matrix of systematic exploitation represent the future humankind if it has one. That is; a future worth looking forward to.
So if the State is continually successful as extracting all of the information it needs to better manage the subject class and crush dissent then there is no future worth looking forward to. And if you do nothing to at least hinder the State’s ability to parasitize and invade you in every which way then consider yourself already parasitized to the point of apathy and self absorption. Meaning that the State and its corporate media complex has effectively neutralized you.
Read more @ http://emergent-culture.com/essential-online-tools-to-protect-yourself-from-invasive-government-corporate-surveillance-spying-snowden-manning-prism-nsa-cia-boundless-informant-tempora-police-state/
Jun 8 15 9:12 AM
Posts: 1
Jun 9 15 8:18 AM
PeacefulSwannie wrote:icepick wrote:They seem quite depressed and angry that they cannot legally spy on us now:http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Rand-Paul-Patriot-act-USA-Freedom-Act-metadata/2015/06/01/id/647916/Sounds like a lot of sour grapes to me...Paul also said on Sunday that he believes there are some in the Senate who want to see an attack, so he can be blamed for the lapse the Patriot Act, a comment that Pataki found "outrageous." "I can't speak for him, but I think the idea that anyone would want to see an attack in America so that he gets political blame is outrageous," Pataki said. "The thought that someone would want to see Americans killed for some political reason is just beyond the line to me."I can actually see that..... I don't think Paul is wrong on that, due to the way some have gone on about keeping the spying going.... really toe curling stuff coming from some of them. You can see the anger and venom spurting out of photos of them.... not just their words.
icepick wrote:They seem quite depressed and angry that they cannot legally spy on us now:http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Rand-Paul-Patriot-act-USA-Freedom-Act-metadata/2015/06/01/id/647916/
Paul also said on Sunday that he believes there are some in the Senate who want to see an attack, so he can be blamed for the lapse the Patriot Act, a comment that Pataki found "outrageous." "I can't speak for him, but I think the idea that anyone would want to see an attack in America so that he gets political blame is outrageous," Pataki said. "The thought that someone would want to see Americans killed for some political reason is just beyond the line to me."
Read More: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/rudy-takala/fcc-co...
(CNSNews.com) – Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Ajit Pai said over the weekend that he foresees a future in which federal regulators will seek to regulate websites based on political content, using the power of the FCC or Federal Elections Commission (FEC). He also revealed that his opposition to “net neutrality” regulations had resulted in personal harassment and threats to his family.
Jun 9 15 10:36 AM
Jun 12 15 9:28 PM
EAST Timor has officially dropped its case against Australia before the UN's International Court of Justice, after Canberra returned sensitive documents relating to a controversial oil and gas treaty. "THE case brought against Australia in respect of a dispute concerning the seizure of data and documents which belongs to Timor-Leste... was removed from the court's list on June 11," the ICJ said Friday in a statement. However, a parallel case behind closed doors before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), which is in the same building as the Hague-based ICJ, is set to continue. East Timor announced earlier this month it will drop charges in the bitter spy row that saw Canberra seize documents in 2013 in an Australian intelligence services raid on the office of a lawyer representing Dili in the case at the PCA.
EAST Timor has officially dropped its case against Australia before the UN's International Court of Justice, after Canberra returned sensitive documents relating to a controversial oil and gas treaty.
"THE case brought against Australia in respect of a dispute concerning the seizure of data and documents which belongs to Timor-Leste... was removed from the court's list on June 11," the ICJ said Friday in a statement.
Jun 14 15 8:45 PM
Controversial rules the FCC adopted in February to protect the Internet will go into effect on Friday after a federal appeals court denies opponents' request to delay the rules.The Federal Communications Commission's open Internet rules will take effect on Friday as planned after a federal court rejected requests by opponents to delay the rules pending lawsuits against the agency.A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Thursday denied a request filed by wireless and broadband industry groups to delay the FCC's adoption of so-called Net neutrality rules. The court's denial of the request means that the new rules, which reclassify broadband as a public utility and prohibit broadband providers from slowing down or blocking Internet traffic, will go into effect as planned on Friday, June 12. The ruling by the court comes as a relief to the FCC, which is facing several lawsuits over the rules, which were approved by a 3-2 vote in February.The Net neutrality regulations are based on a new definition of broadband that lets the government regulate Internet infrastructure as a public utility. The rules prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing down traffic on wired and wireless networks. They also ban Internet service providers from offering paid priority services that could allow them to charge content companies, such as Netflix, fees to access Internet "fast lanes" to reach customers more quickly when networks are congested.FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler called the ruling on Thursday a huge victory for Internet consumers and innovators. "Starting Friday, there will be a referee on the field to keep the Internet fast, fair and open," he said. "Blocking, throttling, pay-for-priority fast lanes and other efforts to come between consumers and the Internet are now things of the past. The rules also give broadband providers the certainty and economic incentive to build fast and competitive broadband networks."The FCC's rules were adopted in February and were published by the government in April. Following a standard 60-day waiting period, the rules go into effect on Friday.
Controversial rules the FCC adopted in February to protect the Internet will go into effect on Friday after a federal appeals court denies opponents' request to delay the rules.
The Federal Communications Commission's open Internet rules will take effect on Friday as planned after a federal court rejected requests by opponents to delay the rules pending lawsuits against the agency.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Thursday denied a request filed by wireless and broadband industry groups to delay the FCC's adoption of so-called Net neutrality rules. The court's denial of the request means that the new rules, which reclassify broadband as a public utility and prohibit broadband providers from slowing down or blocking Internet traffic, will go into effect as planned on Friday, June 12.
The ruling by the court comes as a relief to the FCC, which is facing several lawsuits over the rules, which were approved by a 3-2 vote in February.
The Net neutrality regulations are based on a new definition of broadband that lets the government regulate Internet infrastructure as a public utility. The rules prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing down traffic on wired and wireless networks. They also ban Internet service providers from offering paid priority services that could allow them to charge content companies, such as Netflix, fees to access Internet "fast lanes" to reach customers more quickly when networks are congested.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler called the ruling on Thursday a huge victory for Internet consumers and innovators.
"Starting Friday, there will be a referee on the field to keep the Internet fast, fair and open," he said. "Blocking, throttling, pay-for-priority fast lanes and other efforts to come between consumers and the Internet are now things of the past. The rules also give broadband providers the certainty and economic incentive to build fast and competitive broadband networks."
The FCC's rules were adopted in February and were published by the government in April. Following a standard 60-day waiting period, the rules go into effect on Friday.
Read more @ http://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-wins-early-battle-in-net-neutrality-legal-war/
Jun 15 15 1:11 PM
Jun 16 15 6:38 AM
Two Years On, How Much Has Edward Snowden Achieved?
Friday June 5 marked the second anniversary of the start of Edward Snowden’s disclosures. The days preceding this anniversary highlighted Snowden’s continued prominence. On June 1, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act—the legal basis for the domestic telephone metadata surveillance program Snowden revealed—expired. On June 2, the Senate passed and President Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, which the House of Representatives previously approved. This legislation transforms how the U.S. government will access domestic telephone metadata for foreign surveillance. On June 4, the New York Times published a story based on Snowden-disclosed documents claiming the NSA secretly expanded “Internet spying at the U.S. border.” Also on June 4, Snowden published an op-ed claiming that “the world says no to surveillance.” It was a good week for Snowden. But has it been a good two years for the rest of us? Section 215 and the Domestic Telephone Metadata Program Snowden’s signature achievement involved exposing what the U.S. government did under a secret interpretation of Section 215. He defended the principle that the government should not exercise power under secret laws. Although oversight bodies found no NSA abuses, this conclusion did not overcome the rule-of-law defect Snowden emphasized. However, Snowden’s challenge was not the only factor in Section 215’s death. The metadata program was ineffective as a counter-terrorism tool, which led some in the intelligence community to welcome its demise. Had the program contributed to foiling terrorism, its utility might have overcome the taint of its secret jurisprudence. Section 702 Surveillance Against Foreign Targets Snowden also exposed programs operated under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). For example, the Times article on June 4 used Snowden-provided documents to disclose that the U.S. government began conducting surveillance for malicious cyber activities suspected to originate from foreign governments. Section 702 authorizes surveillance against foreign governments, so the cyber surveillance fits within this legal authority.
Friday June 5 marked the second anniversary of the start of Edward Snowden’s disclosures. The days preceding this anniversary highlighted Snowden’s continued prominence.
On June 1, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act—the legal basis for the domestic telephone metadata surveillance program Snowden revealed—expired. On June 2, the Senate passed and President Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, which the House of Representatives previously approved. This legislation transforms how the U.S. government will access domestic telephone metadata for foreign surveillance.
On June 4, the New York Times published a story based on Snowden-disclosed documents claiming the NSA secretly expanded “Internet spying at the U.S. border.” Also on June 4, Snowden published an op-ed claiming that “the world says no to surveillance.”
It was a good week for Snowden. But has it been a good two years for the rest of us?
Section 215 and the Domestic Telephone Metadata Program
Snowden’s signature achievement involved exposing what the U.S. government did under a secret interpretation of Section 215. He defended the principle that the government should not exercise power under secret laws. Although oversight bodies found no NSA abuses, this conclusion did not overcome the rule-of-law defect Snowden emphasized.
However, Snowden’s challenge was not the only factor in Section 215’s death. The metadata program was ineffective as a counter-terrorism tool, which led some in the intelligence community to welcome its demise. Had the program contributed to foiling terrorism, its utility might have overcome the taint of its secret jurisprudence.
Section 702 Surveillance Against Foreign Targets
Snowden also exposed programs operated under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). For example, the Times article on June 4 used Snowden-provided documents to disclose that the U.S. government began conducting surveillance for malicious cyber activities suspected to originate from foreign governments. Section 702 authorizes surveillance against foreign governments, so the cyber surveillance fits within this legal authority.
Read more @ http://www.newsweek.com/two-years-how-much-has-edward-snowden-achieved-340906
The collection of Australia’s personal information under the government’s new metadata laws will create a “high risk” target for cyber attacks as the value of data for criminal groups skyrockets. The former head of the US intelligence probe into the Edward Snowden leaks, Keith Lowry, has also told The Australian that the government and corporations needed to be particularly vigilant against the risk of an “insider” attack amid an epidemic of data theft. Warning that cyber crime was more profitable than global cocaine and heroin trades combined, Mr Lowry said a recent study by IBM had found more than half of all cyber attacks occurred with help from insiders or “malicious” participants. He has also warned that insiders are likely involved in assisting foreign spies of corporate and government interests either for personal financial gain or as unwitting helpers. “If you look at the profits, the revenues, from the illegal activities from cyber-security attacks, it is more than cocaine, heroin and other illegal drugs combined and it is a much easier thing to do with a much less penalty,” he said. “Transnational criminal organisations recognise that it is an important revenue stream for them; non-state actors realise it is an easy way, and I believe that state actors are also doing the exact same thing.”
The collection of Australia’s personal information under the government’s new metadata laws will create a “high risk” target for cyber attacks as the value of data for criminal groups skyrockets.
The former head of the US intelligence probe into the Edward Snowden leaks, Keith Lowry, has also told The Australian that the government and corporations needed to be particularly vigilant against the risk of an “insider” attack amid an epidemic of data theft.
Warning that cyber crime was more profitable than global cocaine and heroin trades combined, Mr Lowry said a recent study by IBM had found more than half of all cyber attacks occurred with help from insiders or “malicious” participants.
He has also warned that insiders are likely involved in assisting foreign spies of corporate and government interests either for personal financial gain or as unwitting helpers.
“If you look at the profits, the revenues, from the illegal activities from cyber-security attacks, it is more than cocaine, heroin and other illegal drugs combined and it is a much easier thing to do with a much less penalty,” he said.
“Transnational criminal organisations recognise that it is an important revenue stream for them; non-state actors realise it is an easy way, and I believe that state actors are also doing the exact same thing.”
Read more @ http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/terror/metadata-easy-prey-for-cyber-thieves-keith-lowry/story-fnpdbcmu-1227399340204
MOSCOW — TWO years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents revealing that democratic governments had been monitoring the private activities of ordinary citizens who had done nothing wrong. Within days, the United States government responded by bringing charges against me under World War I-era espionage laws. The journalists were advised by lawyers that they risked arrest or subpoena if they returned to the United States. Politicians raced to condemn our efforts as un-American, even treasonous. Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our privileged lives at risk for nothing — that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations. Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong. Two years on, the difference is profound. In a single month, the N.S.A.’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated. This is the power of an informed public.
MOSCOW — TWO years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents revealing that democratic governments had been monitoring the private activities of ordinary citizens who had done nothing wrong.
Within days, the United States government responded by bringing charges against me under World War I-era espionage laws. The journalists were advised by lawyers that they risked arrest or subpoena if they returned to the United States. Politicians raced to condemn our efforts as un-American, even treasonous.
Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our privileged lives at risk for nothing — that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations.
Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.
Two years on, the difference is profound. In a single month, the N.S.A.’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated.
This is the power of an informed public.
Whistleblower says ‘profound difference’ has occurred over past two years after leaking of NSA documents as public demands privacy A “profound difference” has occurred over the past two years, following the leaking of NSA documents that led to revelations about US surveillance on phone and internet communications, whistleblower Edward Snowden has said. Writing in the New York Times, the computer analyst said that the balance of power is changing as a post-terror generation “turns away from reaction and fear in favour of resilience and reason”. Snowden said that bulk data collection programmes had been declared illegal and disavowed by the US Congress. “After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticised its disclosure has now ordered it terminated,” he said in the piece, also published in the French newspaper Liberation.
Whistleblower says ‘profound difference’ has occurred over past two years after leaking of NSA documents as public demands privacy
A “profound difference” has occurred over the past two years, following the leaking of NSA documents that led to revelations about US surveillance on phone and internet communications, whistleblower Edward Snowden has said.
Writing in the New York Times, the computer analyst said that the balance of power is changing as a post-terror generation “turns away from reaction and fear in favour of resilience and reason”.
Snowden said that bulk data collection programmes had been declared illegal and disavowed by the US Congress.
“After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticised its disclosure has now ordered it terminated,” he said in the piece, also published in the French newspaper Liberation.
Read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/05/snowden-balance-power-shifted-people-defy-government-surveillance-nsa
The spy agency is neither reformed nor toothless. But there is something that we should be talking about. The spy agency is neither reformed nor toothless. But there is something that we should be talking about. One week after Congress voted to stop the National Security Agency from collecting and storing millions of Americans’ phone records, partisans on both sides are exaggerating the significance of this new reform. NSA supporters lament the loss of a key tool for fighting terrorists, while the agency’s critics hail the new law as (in Edward Snowden’s words) an “historic victory for the rights of every citizen,” with some calling its passage a vindication of Snowden himself as an authentic whistleblower who should be let back home as a hero, not a convict.
Read more @ http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2015/06/the_national_security_agency_s_surveillance_and_the_usa_freedom_act_the.html
I don’t believe this article…..
According to the Sunday Times, Britain has been compelled to pull out agents from live operations in certain countries after Russia and China were able to crack top secret information within the files leaked by ex-U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Charged with espionage, the 31-year Snowden fled to Moscow to seek protection with help from Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013. According to the paper, MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service that works overseas, has removed agents from certain “hostile” countries.
According to the Sunday Times, Britain has been compelled to pull out agents from live operations in certain countries after Russia and China were able to crack top secret information within the files leaked by ex-U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Charged with espionage, the 31-year Snowden fled to Moscow to seek protection with help from Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013.
According to the paper, MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service that works overseas, has removed agents from certain “hostile” countries.
Read more @ http://www.latinpost.com/articles/59768/20150615/britain-pulls-m16-spies-out-hostile-countries-russia-china-crack.htm
For a few days, there was a happily yawning gap in the U.S. National Security Agency’s ability to surveil American citizens. Congress could not agree on how – or whether – to renew the section of the foolishly named Patriot Act that had allowed the government to scoop up and hold all the metadata (identifying both callers and addressees) of all cellphone calls in the U.S. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would then grant or, at least sometimes, not grant, access to the actual contents of the conversations – in other words, a search warrant. The upshot – under the new U.S.A. Freedom Act (officially, the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015”) – is that phone companies, not the NSA and the FBI, will record and store all the metadata for all phone calls. Those agencies will no longer be able to get at that kind of data at will, indiscriminately. The security agencies will have to apply to the FISC court for metadata, too. That’s progress, though FISC may be a bit of a rubber stamp. There is, by the way, no sign that terrorists attacked the United States in the unsurveilled interval between the Patriot Act section and the Freedom Act. What about Canada? Our Communications Security Establishment – the equivalent of the NSA – never vacuumed up all Canadian metadata. However, Edward Snowden’s revelations have provided strong evidence that CSE agents go or have gone on fishing expeditions, specifically in Canadian airports, randomly looking for all sorts of communications metadata. It’s a more selective approach than American trawling in “bulk telephony collection,” but really just different in scale, not in kind.
For a few days, there was a happily yawning gap in the U.S. National Security Agency’s ability to surveil American citizens. Congress could not agree on how – or whether – to renew the section of the foolishly named Patriot Act that had allowed the government to scoop up and hold all the metadata (identifying both callers and addressees) of all cellphone calls in the U.S. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would then grant or, at least sometimes, not grant, access to the actual contents of the conversations – in other words, a search warrant.
The upshot – under the new U.S.A. Freedom Act (officially, the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015”) – is that phone companies, not the NSA and the FBI, will record and store all the metadata for all phone calls. Those agencies will no longer be able to get at that kind of data at will, indiscriminately. The security agencies will have to apply to the FISC court for metadata, too. That’s progress, though FISC may be a bit of a rubber stamp.
There is, by the way, no sign that terrorists attacked the United States in the unsurveilled interval between the Patriot Act section and the Freedom Act.
What about Canada? Our Communications Security Establishment – the equivalent of the NSA – never vacuumed up all Canadian metadata. However, Edward Snowden’s revelations have provided strong evidence that CSE agents go or have gone on fishing expeditions, specifically in Canadian airports, randomly looking for all sorts of communications metadata. It’s a more selective approach than American trawling in “bulk telephony collection,” but really just different in scale, not in kind.
Read more @ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/the-end-of-us-bulk-telephony-collection-and-the-lessons-for-canada/article24948261/
[JURIST] The Constitutional Court of Belgium [official website] on Thursday ruled [judgment, PDF, in French] that a law requiring Internet service providers and telecommunications operators to retain customer metadata for possible future police investigations violates fundamental privacy rights and is therefore unconstitutional. Specifically the law required these organizations to store customer metadata [IDG report] such as phone call logs and Internet data for one year so that law enforcement could use the data for investigating serious crimes and terrorism. The law was enacted in 2013 as part of the EU Data Retention Directive [official website], which was invalidated [JURIST report] last year. The lawsuit was brought by the League of Human Rights [official website] and the Order of French-speaking and German-speaking Lawyers nearly immediately after the law was introduced.
Read more @ http://jurist.org/paperchase/2015/06/belgium-court-rules-metadata-retention-law-unconsitutional.php
Should judges rather than ministers sign interception warrants? David Anderson’s review of investigatory powers legislation is a weighty and impressive piece of work. The QC’s 373-page report, published last Thursday, covers the activities of 600 public bodies that have powers to obtain information under 65 different statutory mechanisms. And he provides some telling insights into the work of the security and intelligence agencies. ‘They attempt to overcome encryption and its impact on traditional methods of interception by attacking it with powerful computers, by hacking individuals’ electronic devices, by modifying software and by guile, innovation and creativity,’ Anderson tells us. MI5, MI6 and GCHQ ‘seek to influence their targets’ behaviour by making themselves seem omnipotent or – at other times – weak’. For lawyers, though, two issues stand out. First, is it possible to compress these 65 statutory powers into a single act of parliament that is both comprehensive and comprehensible? It is easy enough to draft legislation as obscure as section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984, which allows the secretary of state to give a communications company ‘such directions… as appear… necessary in the interests of national security’. It is much harder to specify what sort of interception is to be allowed without tipping off a potential target. Second, who should sign the warrants that authorise the interception of communications? Should it continue to be a politician? Or should it be a judge? Although a warrant is needed before the police or agencies can read the contents of a message, lower levels of authorisation are sufficient for access to what’s called communications data — information relating to a message. That made more sense when the contents of a letter were more revealing than anything on the envelope. But, as Anderson confirms, what the Americans call metadata can prove hugely valuable – and he is right to say that higher levels of authorisation should be required for novel or contentious requests and those involving journalists or lawyers. Warrants are currently signed personally by a secretary of state – usually, the home secretary – under section 5 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 or section 49 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006. They may be targeted at a person or premises. They may also be thematic – because ‘person’ includes ‘organisation’. And they may gather large amounts of information entering or leaving Britain in bulk – because ‘external’ communications can be intercepted without the need to specify individual targets. Last year, Theresa May personally authorised 2,345 interception and property warrants, sometimes in the middle of the night. Anderson doubts whether this is the best use of her time, which is a polite way of questioning whether she relies too heavily on the advice of officials. But that is not the main reason Anderson thinks we should overhaul a system that dates back to the 17th century, if not earlier. He believes that a comprehensive system of judicial authorisation and oversight would improve public confidence.
Should judges rather than ministers sign interception warrants?
David Anderson’s review of investigatory powers legislation is a weighty and impressive piece of work.
The QC’s 373-page report, published last Thursday, covers the activities of 600 public bodies that have powers to obtain information under 65 different statutory mechanisms. And he provides some telling insights into the work of the security and intelligence agencies. ‘They attempt to overcome encryption and its impact on traditional methods of interception by attacking it with powerful computers, by hacking individuals’ electronic devices, by modifying software and by guile, innovation and creativity,’
Anderson tells us. MI5, MI6 and GCHQ ‘seek to influence their targets’ behaviour by making themselves seem omnipotent or – at other times – weak’.
For lawyers, though, two issues stand out. First, is it possible to compress these 65 statutory powers into a single act of parliament that is both comprehensive and comprehensible? It is easy enough to draft legislation as obscure as section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984, which allows the secretary of state to give a communications company ‘such directions… as appear… necessary in the interests of national security’. It is much harder to specify what sort of interception is to be allowed without tipping off a potential target.
Second, who should sign the warrants that authorise the interception of communications? Should it continue to be a politician? Or should it be a judge?
Although a warrant is needed before the police or agencies can read the contents of a message, lower levels of authorisation are sufficient for access to what’s called communications data — information relating to a message. That made more sense when the contents of a letter were more revealing than anything on the envelope. But, as Anderson confirms, what the Americans call metadata can prove hugely valuable – and he is right to say that higher levels of authorisation should be required for novel or contentious requests and those involving journalists or lawyers.
Warrants are currently signed personally by a secretary of state – usually, the home secretary – under section 5 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 or section 49 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006. They may be targeted at a person or premises. They may also be thematic – because ‘person’ includes ‘organisation’. And they may gather large amounts of information entering or leaving Britain in bulk – because ‘external’ communications can be intercepted without the need to specify individual targets.
Last year, Theresa May personally authorised 2,345 interception and property warrants, sometimes in the middle of the night. Anderson doubts whether this is the best use of her time, which is a polite way of questioning whether she relies too heavily on the advice of officials.
But that is not the main reason Anderson thinks we should overhaul a system that dates back to the 17th century, if not earlier. He believes that a comprehensive system of judicial authorisation and oversight would improve public confidence.
Read more @ http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/analysis/comment-and-opinion/spooks-under-surveillance/5049348.article
But claims bulk collection of online data is justified The legal framework justifying mass surveillance by UK intelligence agencies needs to be scrapped, according to an independent report commissioned by the UK government. The 373-page document titled "A Question of Trust" defends the controversial bulk collection of online data, but argues that the power to authorize individual surveillance warrants should be transferred from politicians to judges. "The current law is fragmented, obscure, under constant challenge and variable in the protections that it affords the innocent," said David Anderson, the lead author of the report. "It is time for a clean slate." Moving the powering to authorize individual warrants would, in theory, make it more difficult for intelligence agencies to carry out intrusive surveillance, but there's no guarantee that politicians will heed the report's recommendations. It also suggests that plans to revive the so-called Snoopers Charter — a controversial bill requiring ISPs to maintain records of users' internet history and messaging metadata for up to a year — should be shelved until there is actual evidence the law is needed. This is likely to irk the current Conservative government, which has been eager to push forward new surveillance laws.
But claims bulk collection of online data is justified
The legal framework justifying mass surveillance by UK intelligence agencies needs to be scrapped, according to an independent report commissioned by the UK government. The 373-page document titled "A Question of Trust" defends the controversial bulk collection of online data, but argues that the power to authorize individual surveillance warrants should be transferred from politicians to judges. "The current law is fragmented, obscure, under constant challenge and variable in the protections that it affords the innocent," said David Anderson, the lead author of the report. "It is time for a clean slate."
Moving the powering to authorize individual warrants would, in theory, make it more difficult for intelligence agencies to carry out intrusive surveillance, but there's no guarantee that politicians will heed the report's recommendations. It also suggests that plans to revive the so-called Snoopers Charter — a controversial bill requiring ISPs to maintain records of users' internet history and messaging metadata for up to a year — should be shelved until there is actual evidence the law is needed. This is likely to irk the current Conservative government, which has been eager to push forward new surveillance laws.
Read more @ http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/11/8764475/uk-mass-surveillance-independent-review
A new official report suggests the UK intelligence agencies should be allowed to keep mass spying activities including its metadata gathering powers. In a 373-page report published on Thursday, official reviewer of counter-terrorism laws has also proposed some changes saying the power to issue interception warrants should be transferred from ministers to judges.
A new official report suggests the UK intelligence agencies should be allowed to keep mass spying activities including its metadata gathering powers.
In a 373-page report published on Thursday, official reviewer of counter-terrorism laws has also proposed some changes saying the power to issue interception warrants should be transferred from ministers to judges.
Read more @ http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/06/11/415385/Let-UK-intel-agencies-do-mass-spying
Editor’s note: This is a chapter in Journalism After Snowden: The Future of Free Press in the Surveillance State, a forthcoming book from Columbia University Press. The book is part of the Journalism After Snowden initiative, a yearlong series of events and projects from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism in collaboration with CJR. The initiative is funded by The Tow Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Journalism after Snowden? Two very big questions linger on—one about whether the very technologies Edward Snowden revealed are compatible with independent, inquiring reporting; and one crucial question about journalism itself, which could be boiled down to: “What is it supposed to be, or do?” The technologies first. Any journalist with even a cursory understanding of the Snowden stories published by The Guardian and The Washington Post would have come to an understanding that states—even liberal democracies—have the ability to intercept, store and analyse virtually all forms of electronic communication. Faceless people in shadowy agencies (not to mention the police) can, if they want, read your text messages and emails. They can see who or what you’ve been searching for. They can divine what you’re thinking. They can access all your contacts. And they can follow you. James Graham’s play, Privacy, at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2014, dramatized some of these capabilities by exploiting some information the theatre-going audience had volunteered in the act of applying for tickets online, or by having their phones and wifi connections switched on during the performance. At one point in the first act members of the audience with iPhones were asked to go through a number of steps—flipping through Settings> Privacy > Location Services > System Services> Frequent Locations. Within a few seconds there was a collective gasp as half the stalls and circle occupants discovered the extent to which their phones had been tracking and storing their every moment. There was the evidence in front of their eyes: the maps showing the addresses they had visited over previous weeks or months, together with precise timings. The log of their lives.
Editor’s note: This is a chapter in Journalism After Snowden: The Future of Free Press in the Surveillance State, a forthcoming book from Columbia University Press. The book is part of the Journalism After Snowden initiative, a yearlong series of events and projects from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism in collaboration with CJR. The initiative is funded by The Tow Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Journalism after Snowden? Two very big questions linger on—one about whether the very technologies Edward Snowden revealed are compatible with independent, inquiring reporting; and one crucial question about journalism itself, which could be boiled down to: “What is it supposed to be, or do?”
The technologies first. Any journalist with even a cursory understanding of the Snowden stories published by The Guardian and The Washington Post would have come to an understanding that states—even liberal democracies—have the ability to intercept, store and analyse virtually all forms of electronic communication. Faceless people in shadowy agencies (not to mention the police) can, if they want, read your text messages and emails. They can see who or what you’ve been searching for. They can divine what you’re thinking. They can access all your contacts. And they can follow you.
James Graham’s play, Privacy, at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2014, dramatized some of these capabilities by exploiting some information the theatre-going audience had volunteered in the act of applying for tickets online, or by having their phones and wifi connections switched on during the performance.
At one point in the first act members of the audience with iPhones were asked to go through a number of steps—flipping through Settings> Privacy > Location Services > System Services> Frequent Locations. Within a few seconds there was a collective gasp as half the stalls and circle occupants discovered the extent to which their phones had been tracking and storing their every moment. There was the evidence in front of their eyes: the maps showing the addresses they had visited over previous weeks or months, together with precise timings. The log of their lives.
Read more @ http://www.cjr.org/opinion/edward_snowden_impact.php
E-tolls. Many, if not most, Gauteng residents hate them, even though the South African National Roads Agency has gone on a charm offensive to try and turn public opinion around. E-tolls. Many, if not most, Gauteng residents hate them, even though the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has gone on a charm offensive to try and turn public opinion around. In spite of mass opposition to electronic tolling in the province, the government has decided to continue with it, and to link payment to the renewal of motor vehicle licence disks to force compliance. The government’s decision followed an advisory panel report on the issue, which made a case for e-tolls to continue to provide funding for the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP), although it recommended reduced tariffs and alternative funding sources. The panel claimed to adopt a human rights approach to its work, which it said must be used to assess the impact of e-tolls in terms of ‘actual human experiences and relations’. However, its mandate was confined to the socio-economic impact of e-tolls. One human rights issue that remains unaddressed in the panel’s report is the impact of e-tolls on people’s right to locational privacy. Even e-toll detractors have hardly mentioned this issue, which is a major gap in public and media debates. Sanral tracks a vehicle’s locational information on tolled freeways, which they do by taking photographs of the vehicle registration plates as the vehicle drives under the gantries. Vehicles with e-tag transponders will communicate with the gantries via the transponders. Automated toll systems such as the one run by Sanral in Gauteng trigger particular privacy concerns because they involve the observation of specific vehicles in ways that allow the identity of the vehicle’s owner to be revealed. Although conceivably someone other than the owner could be driving the vehicle, ultimately the vehicle can be traced back to its owner.
E-tolls. Many, if not most, Gauteng residents hate them, even though the South African National Roads Agency has gone on a charm offensive to try and turn public opinion around.
E-tolls. Many, if not most, Gauteng residents hate them, even though the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has gone on a charm offensive to try and turn public opinion around.
In spite of mass opposition to electronic tolling in the province, the government has decided to continue with it, and to link payment to the renewal of motor vehicle licence disks to force compliance.
The government’s decision followed an advisory panel report on the issue, which made a case for e-tolls to continue to provide funding for the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP), although it recommended reduced tariffs and alternative funding sources.
The panel claimed to adopt a human rights approach to its work, which it said must be used to assess the impact of e-tolls in terms of ‘actual human experiences and relations’.
However, its mandate was confined to the socio-economic impact of e-tolls. One human rights issue that remains unaddressed in the panel’s report is the impact of e-tolls on people’s right to locational privacy.
Even e-toll detractors have hardly mentioned this issue, which is a major gap in public and media debates.
Sanral tracks a vehicle’s locational information on tolled freeways, which they do by taking photographs of the vehicle registration plates as the vehicle drives under the gantries.
Vehicles with e-tag transponders will communicate with the gantries via the transponders.
Automated toll systems such as the one run by Sanral in Gauteng trigger particular privacy concerns because they involve the observation of specific vehicles in ways that allow the identity of the vehicle’s owner to be revealed.
Although conceivably someone other than the owner could be driving the vehicle, ultimately the vehicle can be traced back to its owner.
Read more @ http://mybroadband.co.za/news/government/129110-the-government-can-spy-on-you-using-e-tolls.html
Last week, Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined President Barack Obama in congratulating themselves for taming the National Security Agency’s voracious appetite for spying. By permitting one section of the Patriot Act to expire and by replacing it with the USA Freedom Act, the federal government is taking credit for taming beasts of its own creation. In reality, nothing substantial has changed. Under the Patriot Act, the NSA had access to and possessed digital versions of the content of all telephone conversations, emails and text messages sent between and among all people in America since 2009. Under the USA Freedom Act, it has the same. The USA Freedom Act changes slightly the mechanisms for acquiring this bulk data, but it does not change the amount or nature of the data the NSA acquires. Under the Patriot Act, the NSA installed its computers in every main switching station of every telecom carrier and Internet service provider in the U.S. It did this by getting Congress to immunize the carriers and providers from liability for permitting the feds to snoop on their customers and by getting the Department of Justice to prosecute the only CEO of a carrier who had the courage to send the feds packing. In order to operate its computers at these facilities, the NSA placed its own computer analysts physically at those computers 24/7. It then went to the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and asked for search warrants directing the telecoms and Internet service providers to make available to it all the identifying metadata -- the times, locations, durations, email addresses used and telephone numbers used -- for all callers and email users in a given ZIP code or area code or on a customer list.
Last week, Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined President Barack Obama in congratulating themselves for taming the National Security Agency’s voracious appetite for spying. By permitting one section of the Patriot Act to expire and by replacing it with the USA Freedom Act, the federal government is taking credit for taming beasts of its own creation.
In reality, nothing substantial has changed.
Under the Patriot Act, the NSA had access to and possessed digital versions of the content of all telephone conversations, emails and text messages sent between and among all people in America since 2009. Under the USA Freedom Act, it has the same. The USA Freedom Act changes slightly the mechanisms for acquiring this bulk data, but it does not change the amount or nature of the data the NSA acquires.
Under the Patriot Act, the NSA installed its computers in every main switching station of every telecom carrier and Internet service provider in the U.S. It did this by getting Congress to immunize the carriers and providers from liability for permitting the feds to snoop on their customers and by getting the Department of Justice to prosecute the only CEO of a carrier who had the courage to send the feds packing.
In order to operate its computers at these facilities, the NSA placed its own computer analysts physically at those computers 24/7. It then went to the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and asked for search warrants directing the telecoms and Internet service providers to make available to it all the identifying metadata -- the times, locations, durations, email addresses used and telephone numbers used -- for all callers and email users in a given ZIP code or area code or on a customer list.
Read more @ http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/06/11/dont-be-fooled-america-your-government-is-still-lying-to.html
In April the junior senator from Kentucky announced that he was officially running for president. In May he released his new book, Taking a Stand, which argues that only a “new kind of Republican” can win a general election against Hillary Clinton, in part by embracing such cross-partisan issues as privacy, as he did most famously in a March 2013 filibuster about drone policy. And as the clock struck down to June, Paul fulfilled a campaign vow – and pissed off a lot of Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and much of the 2016 presidential field – by blocking reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Reason Magazine Editor-in-Chief Matt Welch sat down with Rand Paul in his Washington, D.C. campaign office Thursday to discuss his ongoing disputes with GOP hawks like Lindsey Graham, whether Edward Snowden should go to prison, and what will be the future of NSA surveillance. Runs approximately 14.30 minutes. Produced by Joshua Swain and Meredith Bragg. Scroll down for downloadable versions of this video, and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube channel for daily content like this. This is a rush transcript. All quotes should be checked against the audio for accuracy. Reason: Senator Paul, thanks for joining us. Rand Paul: Glad to do it.
In April the junior senator from Kentucky announced that he was officially running for president. In May he released his new book, Taking a Stand, which argues that only a “new kind of Republican” can win a general election against Hillary Clinton, in part by embracing such cross-partisan issues as privacy, as he did most famously in a March 2013 filibuster about drone policy.
And as the clock struck down to June, Paul fulfilled a campaign vow – and pissed off a lot of Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and much of the 2016 presidential field – by blocking reauthorization of the Patriot Act.
Reason Magazine Editor-in-Chief Matt Welch sat down with Rand Paul in his Washington, D.C. campaign office Thursday to discuss his ongoing disputes with GOP hawks like Lindsey Graham, whether Edward Snowden should go to prison, and what will be the future of NSA surveillance.
Runs approximately 14.30 minutes.
Produced by Joshua Swain and Meredith Bragg.
Scroll down for downloadable versions of this video, and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube channel for daily content like this.
This is a rush transcript. All quotes should be checked against the audio for accuracy.
Reason: Senator Paul, thanks for joining us.
Rand Paul: Glad to do it.
Read more @ http://reason.com/reasontv/2015/06/05/rand-paul-on-blocking-the-patriot-act-go
Jun 16 15 7:32 AM
Jun 16 15 8:00 AM
icepick wrote:So do you think that article 215 is really dead Pen? Legally it is, but in my opinion Obama invested far too much in it for him to simply allow all of that to go away. In short, I don't trust him, and there's not enough oversight. I'm sure he will try to keep it running in secret.Still, it's hard to miss the fact that nearly every western nation has been acting like it's dead since Paul blocked the vote, and have been maneuvering to do it themselves. Were that many nations buying data from us?
Jun 16 15 1:21 PM