NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

[Technician]

[Acid]

Again?

[Remiel]

[188DarkRevived]

I'm so glad that I don't socially participate on any of those "9 top-leading websites" anymore.
The real enemy is out there above us, trying to pit us against each other, like a stealthy marine who strafes between imps and cacodemons.
Meh.

[GreyGhost]

"enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time."

Don't suppose they're also profiling people's buying patterns, direct marketers would pay a fortune for that sort of info.

[Technician]

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself.

"We decline comment," said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.

Jesus, and on the same day.

America: "Take the fourth but leave the second!"

[Technician]

Senators Address!

"It's called protecting America," chair of the Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said. "I understand privacy, Sen. Chambliss understands privacy, we want to protect people's private rights and that is why this is carefully done."

"This is not something I think that we don't view with extraordinary caution, we do," Feinstein continued.

"This is nothing particularly new," Sen. Chambliss, ranking Republican of the Intelligence Committee said, "this has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the FISA authority and ever member of the United States Senate has been advised of this."

[GreyGhost]

Technician said:

"top secret court order"

"secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court"

"government's domestic spying powers"

"The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself."

Don't you just love transparency in government. Once the security services are routinely treating the populace at large as potential enemies of the State, it's time to declare the system broken and start looking for a replacement.

[Fulgrim]

I said it once and I'll say it another time.

I'm really not surprised by this. America has been moving towards a I total police/surveillance state for years. The change has been moving so slowly and deliberately that most people not paying attention have simply not seen it. DHS participating in the crack down of OWS. The expansion of the Patriot Act. The crack down on whistle blowers. The NDAA of 2012 and now the NSA/FBI spying on people. All this has happened in just the past few years. Though the frame work for all this was laid years ago. To be honest the fact that people are being spied on does not scare me that much. Its the fact that so many people still have there heads in the sand or are not willing to stand up for whats right, that scares me. How bad does it have to get before people see whats right in front of there face and are willing to do something about it? Is it going to take S.S. style police raids or tracking chip implants before people get it?

If people don't enforce the Constitutional limits on the government and remove anyone in office that refuses to uphold the Constitution. Or tries to circumvent it, we will see raids and tracking chips. Because absolute people does corrupt and by standing back, doing noting, you are in fact giving the government and the people that own it absolute power. There is a reason our founding fathers and so many figures through out Americas history tried to beat this into our heads. Because they seen it before and knew if people didn't remain vigilant, it would happen again.

[Technician]

Maybe if all the rednecks that made such a big deal about protecting their second amendment right to fight tyranny actually practiced that right...

Anyway, the fourth amendment doesn't actually grant you a right of privacy, it simply forbids the government from using acquired information without warrant against you in court. Sadly, as of late, the government can simply detain you without warrant or due process, and can detain you indefinitely with that scrap of information they recorded from you, so the fourth is essentially invalid at this point.

[CorSair]

Still waiting gggmork's response.

But this didn't felt surprising, somehow.

[doom_is_great]

America: "Take the fourth but leave the second!" [/B]

Uh, NO. That would be the stupidest thing ever. Giving the guys who are committing these Orwellian acts a monopoly on guns would be suicide.

[printz]

Can they tap on whatever information the trade organizations want to know, and send the news to them if something happens? Do they also watch what happens overseas?

[Maes]

Already read that shit in the 90s, with the ECHELON spy network and all.

[Gez]

Not surprising at all.

I'm glad the Frenchies didn't let Yahoo buy Dailymotion, though.

[Maes]

Let's just send a bunch of random "bad words" with our every email like terrorism, Osama, Afghanistan, etc. That will make them feel the pressure and overload their systems.

[40oz]

Good. I hope you all go to jail.

[188DarkRevived]

Gez said:

I'm glad the Frenchies didn't let Yahoo buy Dailymotion, though.

In a way I'm actually very relieved by this as well. :)
I get all the desired & intelligent viewers that I need without Yahoo. Being sold to Yahoo would've probably opened gateways for new trolls to bother me.
But I've got my sanctuary. Mwoohahaha!

[Remilia Scarlet]

Maes said:

Let's just send a bunch of random "bad words" with our every email like terrorism, Osama, Afghanistan, etc. That will make them feel the pressure and overload their systems.

Emacs actually has a function for that called "spook".

[Maes]

yukib1t said:

Emacs actually has a function for that called "spook".

I like to thing that actual criminals/terrorists are much smarter than that -openly using common terms for their activities, that is. Real gansters/terrorists, if they are not totally fucking stupid crackheads, will the very least use a specific lingo or even be smart enough to use steganography in one form or the other. Even using the cliched word "stuff" in lieu of arms, drugs, etc. would suffice, unless of course they also screen anything mentioning "stuff".

Messages openly discussing weapons etc. nowadays are much more likely to be movie or game oriented anyway, and especially in a gun-friendly culture like the USA's, gun talk would not be that unusual or exceptional anyway.

The only usefulness of such systems is in the aftermath of some event, e.g. a prominent act of terrorism or a gang "hit", hoping to catch e.g. the perpetrator bragging about it (not unheard of). But in that case, the authorities already have a pretty good idea about where, what and who to look for and are just waiting for the right mix of signals to appear, they don't just go blindly sifting through millions of messages for out-of-context keywords like a CS freshman's text search function.

[Technician]

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/print-friendly/55749

gggmork where are you?

[Technician]

Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks

Wow.

[hex11]

I bet those cyber-lamers couldn't even hack my laptop, and I haven't even done anything special to protect it. It's just an OpenBSD system with default ports open, and also default pf configuration. Someone with real critical systems to protect may well be running an OS/hardware designed from the beginning with security in mind (not just a halfway sane, general-purpose Unix close).

[GreyGhost]

Any commercial network that's hardened against attack probably has backdoors that can be opened by one or more members of Homeland Security's alphabet soup of agencies.

[hex11]

Not if it's in Russia, Iran, China, etc. Hell, China can easily make their own custom hardware for critical systems, and keep all of it for themselves. They have all the fab plants! US feds can't fuck with them.

[Koko Ricky]

I confess everything I do to everyone I know. I can't be blackmailed. I can't possibly see the danger in being monitored.

[Technician]

Sign to resign!

GoatLord said:

I confess everything I do to everyone I know. I can't be blackmailed. I can't possibly see the danger in being monitored.

Not sure if sarcastic or American.

[Ralphis]

Not gonna lie, in a sick way it amuses me that a lot of the same people (who are still active by the way) that used to post near daily about Bush's third term and all of that crap rarely come into these threads to say a whole lot. They couldn't wait to get rid of the Republicans and what they got might possibly be worse than what they hated so much.

[Koko Ricky]

Technician said:

Sign to resign!

Not sure if sarcastic or American.

This is the honest truth. I don't believe in skeletons in the closet, so I make my actions public knowledge.

[Cupboard]

This is very bad. Waste of money and the American people's dwindling trust.

The Patriot Act was a mistake to begin with. This is an issue that transcends ideology. Bush, Obama, who cares. We're dealing with an executive branch that claims increasingly broad war powers during times of relative peace.