Prism and Verizon surveillance discussion thread

[Cain]

It seems pretty extreme, though since I've never worked for US intelligence or the military, I have no idea how far out of the norm it is.

[LMNO]

WHY THE FUCK US THE STASI SETTING UP SHOP IN THE WHITE HOUSE?

[Doktor Howl]

And while I'm here

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/20/194513/obamas-crackdown-views-leaks-as.html

In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents.

The techniques are a key pillar of the Insider Threat Program, an unprecedented government-wide crackdown under which millions of federal bureaucrats and contractors must watch out for "high-risk persons or behaviors" among co-workers. Those who fail to report them could face penalties, including criminal charges.

Yeah, posted something about that a week ago, IIRC.

Bitterness and paranoia at the workplace?  NO PROBLEM.  Have them spy on each other.

[Doktor Howl]

WHY THE FUCK US THE STASI SETTING UP SHOP IN THE WHITE HOUSE?

Because they can?

[Faust]

Remember boys and girls, that cranky old stinky Pete in IT may in fact be a RED. En svensk tiger.

[Doktor Howl]

Remember boys and girls, that cranky old stinky Pete in IT may in fact be a RED. En svensk tiger.

Is your bathroom breeding BOLSHEVIKS?

[Left]

While actually not the nabbing of the NSA...
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/

Thought this might be interesting...

[Doktor Howl]

While actually not the nabbing of the NSA...
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/

Thought this might be interesting...

What the hell is quinoa, they asked. ..

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

While actually not the nabbing of the NSA...
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/

Thought this might be interesting...

What the hell is quinoa, they asked. ..

NSA, ALL UP IN OUR MEMES! 

[Don Coyote]

It seems pretty extreme, though since I've never worked for US intelligence or the military, I have no idea how far out of the norm it is.

not very. been getting that kind of signal since my first anti-terrorism and information awareness briefing.  When taken in the context that someone you know could get your buddies liked by telling the baddies something it makes sense.

[Cain]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/july-dec13/whistleblowers_08-01.html

JUDY WOODRUFF: Both Binney and Tice suspect that today, the NSA is doing more than just collecting metadata on calls made in the U.S. They both point to this CNN interview by former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente days after the Boston Marathon bombing. Clemente was asked if the government had a way to get the recordings of the calls between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife.

TIM CLEMENTE, former FBI counterterrorism agent: On the national security side of the house, in the federal government, you know, we have assets. There are lots of assets at our disposal throughout the intelligence community and also not just domestically, but overseas. Those assets allow us to gain information, intelligence on things that we can't use ordinarily in a criminal investigation.

All digital communications are — there's a way to look at digital communications in the past. And I can't go into detail of how that's done or what's done. But I can tell you that no digital communication is secure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Tice says after he saw this interview on television, he called some former workmates at the NSA.

RUSSELL TICE: Well, two months ago, I contacted some colleagues at NSA. We had a little meeting, and the question came up, was NSA collecting everything now? Because we kind of figured that was the goal all along. And the answer came back. It was, yes, they are collecting everything, contents word for word, everything of every domestic communication in this country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Both of you know what the government says is that we're collecting this — we're collecting the number of phone calls that are made, the e-mails, but we're not listening to them.

WILLIAM BINNEY: Well, I don't believe that for a minute. OK?

I mean, that's why they had to build Bluffdale, that facility in Utah with that massive amount of storage that could store all these recordings and all the data being passed along the fiberoptic networks of the world. I mean, you could store 100 years of the world's communications here. That's for content storage. That's not for metadata.

Metadata if you were doing it and putting it into the systems we built, you could do it in a 12-by-20-foot room for the world. That's all the space you need. You don't need 100,000 square feet of space that they have at Bluffdale to do that. You need that kind of storage for content.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what does that say, Russell Tice, about what the government — you're saying — your understanding is of what the government does once these conversations take place, is it your understanding they're recorded and kept?

RUSSELL TICE: Yes, digitized and recorded and archived in a facility that is now online. And they're kind of fibbing about that as well, because Bluffdale is online right now.

And that's where the information is going. Now, as far as being able to have an analyst look at all that, that's impossible, of course. And I think, semantically, they're trying to say that their definition of collection is having literally a physical analyst look or listen, which would be disingenuous.

[Cain]

And for our UK readers:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/aug/02/telecoms-bt-vodafone-cables-gchq

Some of the world's leading telecoms firms, including BT and Vodafone, are secretly collaborating with Britain's spy agency GCHQ, and are passing on details of their customers' phone calls, email messages and Facebook entries, documents leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden show.

BT, Vodafone Cable, and the American firm Verizon Business – together with four other smaller providers – have given GCHQ secret unlimited access to their network of undersea cables. The cables carry much of the world's phone calls and internet traffic.

In June the Guardian revealed details of GCHQ's ambitious data-hoovering programmes, Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. It emerged GCHQ was able to tap into fibre-optic cables and store huge volumes of data for up to 30 days. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for 20 months.

On Friday Germany's Süddeutsche newspaper published the most highly sensitive aspect of this operation – the names of the commercial companies working secretly with GCHQ, and giving the agency access to their customers' private communications. The paper said it had seen a copy of an internal GCHQ powerpoint presentation from 2009 discussing Tempora.

The document identified for the first time which telecoms companies are working with GCHQ's "special source" team. It gives top secret codenames for each firm, with BT ("Remedy"), Verizon Business ("Dacron"), and Vodafone Cable ("Gerontic"). The other firms include Global Crossing ("Pinnage"), Level 3 ("Little"), Viatel ("Vitreous") and Interoute ("Streetcar"). The companies refused to comment on any specifics relating to Tempora, but several noted they were obliged to comply with UK and EU law.

[Cain]

[The Johnny]

"Dissident = Traitor"

Cain, what was that about Hearts and Minds and 5th gen warfare??? Something about control over not just the people, but also their thoughts?

[Cain]

Yup.  Psychological warfare.  Influence how people think, and you can win a conflict before it's even started. 

In this particular case, however, I suspect it's a mix of signalling by an ambitious staffer ("look how dedicated I am, Senator"), influencing the jury pool for any future court case ("everyone says he's a traitor, so we oughta convinct him") and attempted "innoculation" of the public from future disclosures ("he's a traitor, we shouldn't listen to him").