Prism and Verizon surveillance discussion thread

[Sita]

What's sad is that you used to be able to read 1984 online for free, but since it's gotten so popular again they took it down

You can still read it online for free.  All his stuff is online for free

http://www.george-orwell.org/

Now I've had that bookmarked and been trying to get to it for the past couple weeks and it wasn't working.
Of course as soon as I mention something it decides to prove me wrong 

[Left]

My best friend suggested that we USA people  ALL make FOIA requests to see their own file...and get everyone we can to do the same.

...Might be of annoyance value.  Worth doing for that I suppose.
Meanwhile...
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/13/florida-robbery-suspect-wants-nsa-phone-records-to-exonerate-him/

But Brown's phone records from before September 2010 are nowhere to be found, according to the prosecution. Brown was a Metro PCS customer, which does not keep records that far back.

Undaunted, Brown's attorney, Marshall Louis Dore, filed court documents arguing that in the wake of the NSA phone-tapping scandal, it is very possible that the government has  held onto the proof that he feels will exonerate his client.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My best friend suggested that we USA people  ALL make FOIA requests to see their own file...and get everyone we can to do the same.

...Might be of annoyance value.  Worth doing for that I suppose.
Meanwhile...
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/13/florida-robbery-suspect-wants-nsa-phone-records-to-exonerate-him/

But Brown's phone records from before September 2010 are nowhere to be found, according to the prosecution. Brown was a Metro PCS customer, which does not keep records that far back.

Undaunted, Brown's attorney, Marshall Louis Dore, filed court documents arguing that in the wake of the NSA phone-tapping scandal, it is very possible that the government has  held onto the proof that he feels will exonerate his client.

Wow, it occurs to me that people will start requesting their home phone records to try to bust a cheating spouse and other totally trivial reasons... it would be pretty awesome if Red Tape Guy ends up defeating the NSA.   

[Left]

My best friend suggested that we USA people  ALL make FOIA requests to see their own file...and get everyone we can to do the same.

...Might be of annoyance value.  Worth doing for that I suppose.
Meanwhile...
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/13/florida-robbery-suspect-wants-nsa-phone-records-to-exonerate-him/

But Brown's phone records from before September 2010 are nowhere to be found, according to the prosecution. Brown was a Metro PCS customer, which does not keep records that far back.

Undaunted, Brown's attorney, Marshall Louis Dore, filed court documents arguing that in the wake of the NSA phone-tapping scandal, it is very possible that the government has  held onto the proof that he feels will exonerate his client.

Wow, it occurs to me that people will start requesting their home phone records to try to bust a cheating spouse and other totally trivial reasons... it would be pretty awesome if Red Tape Guy ends up defeating the NSA.   

Exactly whyfor the FOIA requests.

[Cain]

Lots of people have written a lot of stupid shit about Snowden.  Quite rightly, the Brooks piece where he talks about Snowden in the terms of a jilted ex because of how strongly Brooks identifies himself with America, was a classic, but I think a piece by Jezebel, where they call out Snowden because of the stress he is putting his girlfriend through, might take the cake.

Oh, you're facing treason charges and have fled to Hong Kong?  Why don't you think about how this is effecting me?  God, you're so selfish.

[Cain]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-admits-listening-to-u.s-phone-calls-without-warrants/

The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that."

If the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.

Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA's formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.

Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.

NO BUT ITS TOTALLY A RIGOROUS LEGAL REQUIREMENT NEEDED TO EAVESDROP ON DOMESTIC PHONE CALLS THO.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Funny, fifteen years ago or so I started talking about "police state" and for some reason everyone thought I was being silly. That would never happen here! 

[Cain]

The more intelligent conspiratards* are now suggesting that a lot of this stuff is already widely known (suspected =/= known but I get what they are saying) and that this is nothing more than a push by the corporatist fascist state media to bury something even more heinous.

Not so sure about that line of reasoning.  Though I'll concede that Obama's prediliction for total surveillance was clear in the retroactive telecom immunity vote back in 2008.

People with some experience in this area, like Julian Sanchez, have added information to the CNET story.

What seems more likely is that Nadler is saying analysts sifting through metadata have the discretion to determine (on the basis of what they're seeing in the metadata) that a particular phone number or e-mail account satisfies the conditions of one of the broad authorizations for electronic surveillance under §702 of the FISA Amendments Act.

[...]

The analyst must believe that one end of the communication is outside the United States, and flag that account or phone line for collection. Note that even if the real target is the domestic phone number, an analyst working from the metadatabase wouldn't have a name, just a number.  That means there's no "particular, known US person," which ensures that the §702 ban on "reverse targeting" is, pretty much by definition, not violated.

None of that would be too surprising in principle: That's the whole point of §702!

Of course, "must believe" is a pretty flimsy basis for authorizing surveillance.  But that's the point.  And while the metadata access and use is auditable, it's not clear which agency, if any, is undertaking checks on the use of said metadata.

*And Naomi Wolf. 

[Cain]

On the plus side, this is making overseas businesses very uncomfortable with using US based cloud-servers.  They've finally realised that their industrial secrets may not actually be safe on such servers.  Of course, they never were, but it's nice that they've finally caught up.

[Cain]

More UK Prism information

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jun/11/uk-intelligence-requests-microsoft-data

UK intelligence agencies made thousands of requests for information on private communications via Microsoft products last year, with demands for Skype call information outnumbering those made by US agencies.

In 2012, the UK made 1,268 requests to Skype for information such as the names of callers, their address, email account details and telephone numbers dialled. This was a quarter of all requests received by the Microsoft-owned internet call service from governments around the world. The requests could have come from British police and intelligence agencies, such as GCHQ.

The US made 1,154 requests, while German and French intelligence agencies were among the top five heaviest users of backdoor access to Skype data, along with Taiwan. Germany made 686 requests and France made 402.

Microsoft received more than 75,000 snooping orders in 2012, affecting 137,000 user accounts, according to its first law enforcement requests report, the publication of which in March was not widely reported.

The UK was among the top three most active nations in requesting data from Microsoft, from products including Hotmail and Outlook email services, SkyDrive and Office 365 – which store files such as documents, videos and photos on Microsoft's servers and allow users to fetch files stored on their own computers from remote locations – and the Xbox Live service, which gamers often use to chat online.

What is especially amusing about this is that the UK has been moving away from fact-based policy for quite a while now.  They want teh dataz, but they won't actually pay attention to what it says, instead, preferring to rely on good old fashioned intuition and shit they made up to get them what they need.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Snowden's answering questions over here: hxxp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower

[Cain]

On that now.

Some of the questions have been pretty lame, I have to say.

Though this is good to know: "Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications." 

So, like I said above.

[Cain]

Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it.

Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your protected communications shouldn't stop being protected communications just because of the IP they're tagged with.

More fundamentally, the "US Persons" protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."

2) NSA likes to use "domestic" as a weasel word here for a number of reasons. The reality is that due to the FISA Amendments Act and its section 702 authorities, Americans' communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as "incidental" collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications. Even in the event of "warranted" intercept, it's important to understand the intelligence community doesn't always deal with what you would consider a "real" warrant like a Police department would have to, the "warrant" is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp.

Their denials went through several revisions as it become more and more clear they were misleading and included identical, specific language across companies. As a result of these disclosures and the clout of these companies, we're finally beginning to see more transparency and better details about these programs for the first time since their inception.

They are legally compelled to comply and maintain their silence in regard to specifics of the program, but that does not comply them from ethical obligation. If for example Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple refused to provide this cooperation with the Intelligence Community, what do you think the government would do? Shut them down?

[Cain]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/

the way it's set up now, it's a joke. I mean, it can't work the way it is because they have no real way of seeing into what these agencies are doing. They are totally dependent on the agencies briefing them on programs, telling them what they are doing. And as long as the agencies tell them, they will know. If they don't tell them, they don't know. And that's what's been going on here...

Even take the FISA court, for example. The judges signed that order. I mean, I am sure they (the FBI) swore on an affidavit to the judge, "These are the reasons why," but the judge has no foundation to challenge anything that they present to him. What information does the judge have to make a decision against them? I mean, he has absolutely nothing. So that's really not an oversight.....

Could just be me, but it's starting to feel a bit 1970s like around here.  War-weary population, loss of faith in politicians, bullshit intelligence games...all very familiar, culturally speaking.

[Junkenstein]

They are legally compelled to comply and maintain their silence in regard to specifics of the program, but that does not comply them from ethical obligation. If for example Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple refused to provide this cooperation with the Intelligence Community, what do you think the government would do? Shut them down?

Hey Cain, this seems worth exploring. Would it be reasonable to assume that co-operation is financially wise? I would guess that's the first resort a government looking to ensure co-operation and control?

This seems to be implying something more sinister though? Possibly just reading too much into it.