http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-08-09/obama-says-he%E2%80%99ll-%E2%80%9Creform%E2%80%9D-nsa-spying-%E2%80%A6-should-we-believe-him
( Obama tries to change the subject , appease the sheeple but keep spying full speed ahead.... )
Submitted by George Washington on 08/09/2013 16:34 -0400
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/gaius-publius-irs-is-using-nsa-data-too-who-in-town-isnt.html
( Obama tries to change the subject , appease the sheeple but keep spying full speed ahead.... )
Obama Says He’ll “Reform” NSA Spying … Should We Believe Him?
President Obama just announced that he’s making “reforms” to the NSA spying program.
Should we believe him?
Obama's claim this week that the government doesn't spy on Americans is totally false. Not only is the NSA spying on Americans, but it's sharing that information with other agencies ... like the IRS and local law enforcement.
Obama made other easily-disprovable claims today … in the same press conference in which he announced the “reforms”. As NBC News notes – in a piece entitled “Snowden revelations force Obama’s hand on surveillance program” – Obama said:
“You can come forward, come to the appropriate individuals and say, look, I’ve got a problem with what’s going on here, I’m not sure whether it’s being done properly,” he said. “If, in fact, the allegations are true, then [Snowden] didn’t do that. And that is a huge problem because a lot of what we do depends on terrorists networks not knowing that, in fact, we may be able to access their information.”
The statement is false for several reasons.
First, the top counter-terrorism Czar under Clinton and Bush says that revealing NSA spying programs does not harm national security. Many other counter-terrorism experts agree. TechDirt also points out that it makes no sense that whistleblower revelations about spying hurt our security … while U.S. official revelations that they’re tapping the communications of Al Qaeda somehow doesn’t.
Second, whistleblowers like Snowden have no “legal” way to get the information out. Leaking the information is the only way to get it out.
Third, the entire spying program – and the government’s claims on why it is “needed” – have been described as “crazy pants” by top counter-terror experts.
Associated Press reports on other Obama whoppers from today’s press conference:
The president acknowledged the domestic spying has troubled Americans and hurt the country’s image abroad. But he called it a critical counterterrorism tool.***“I am comfortable that the program currently is not being abused,” Obama said. “I am comfortable that if the American people examined exactly what was taking place, how it was being used, what the safeguards were, that they would say, ‘You know what? These folks are following the law.’”***Obama [says the spying] program … already has plenty of [oversight].
In reality, top security experts say that mass spying doesn’t keep us safe … and that mass spying actually hurts U.S. counter-terror efforts.
There is no real oversight by either Congress or the courts. And see this and this. Indeed, mostCongress members have no idea what the NSA is doing. And a Federal judge who was on the secret spying court for 3 years says that it’s a kangaroo court.
Experts say that the spying program is illegal. (Indeed, they point out that it’s exactly the kind of thing which King George imposed on the American colonists … which led to the Revolutionary War. A former U.S. president says that the spying program is so bad that it shows that we no longer have a functioning democracy.)
Given the repeated, continuous lies by Obama and other top administration officials about spying, should we believe the government now that it claims it is “reforming” the spying program?
Indeed, even Obama admitted that he’s not going to do anything to actually rein in spying:
To allay concerns, Obama endorsed modest oversight changes to a program he says already has plenty of it. None of them significantly changes the programs, and the president acknowledged they were intended to appease Americans, not to curtail the surveillance.
Once again – when bad government policy is revealed – the government just tries to put lipstick on the pig .
Top NSA whistleblower William Binney – the 32-year high-level NSA cryptographer and former head of the NSA’s global digital data gathering program – has explained that it is technically easy and cheap to rein in the spying program so that it complies with the Constitution.
Binney told me that the only way to stop the mass surveillance on Americans is to fire the corrupt government officials who let it happen.
He’s right.
As we explained 5 years ago, the only way to stop the ransacking of our prosperity and our constitutional rights is to fire the guys whokeep fleecing us again and again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words over 100 years ago apply rather well to the government officials who have repeatedly lied about spying:
“Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/gaius-publius-irs-is-using-nsa-data-too-who-in-town-isnt.html
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2013
Gaius Publius: IRS is Using NSA Data Too. Who in Town Isn’t?
By Gaius Pubius, a professional writer living on the West Coast. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius. Cross posted from AmericaBlog
This is no longer an NSA data, or DEA data story. It’s a federal, state and local government data-trafficking story. Your Google-collected, Verizon-collected data seems to very broadly available. How broadly? Way more than you thought. Read on for the grizzly details.
We recently reported, along with others, on how the DEA has been getting data from the NSA to aid in their “war on drugs” — then getting prosecutors and cops (DEA and otherwise) to cover up the source of their tips to protect their ability to prosecute.
As bad as the original Snowden-Greenwald NSA story actually is — and if true, it’s very bad indeed — this is worse. After all, what’s the DEA (and half the cops and prosecutors in the country) doing with all that NSA data at their disposal?
Unlike others, though, we think the NSA-DEA connection as not just a point-to-point story — as in, NSA data–to–DEA database for drug cop use. It’s actually a many-points–to–many-points story, with the special unit within the DEA that keeps the data acting as a convenient one-stop collection place for both data sources and receivers.
The real DEA story, prior to the most recent revelation, is that the DEA acts as a clearinghouse for these data sources:
▪ FBI
▪ CIA
▪ NSA (including Google and Apple and friends)
▪ IRS (meaning all your financial data)
▪ Homeland Security
▪ At least 19 other agencies
▪ CIA
▪ NSA (including Google and Apple and friends)
▪ IRS (meaning all your financial data)
▪ Homeland Security
▪ At least 19 other agencies
And it passes the collected data to these receivers:
▪ “About 10,000″ federal, state and local law enforcement agents
▪ All of their cop and prosecutor friends not on the list
▪ All of their cop and prosecutor friends’ non-cop friends
▪ All of their cop and prosecutor friends not on the list
▪ All of their cop and prosecutor friends’ non-cop friends
That’s what we used to think. Now we know more.
Now we know that one of the receivers of NSA (etc.) data is the IRS. (More on that below.) What this means is that, in all likelihood, all of the providers of DEA-collected data are also receivers of DEA-collected data.
Think I’m wrong? What are the odds?
What’s the Real Picture of Data-Trafficking at the DEA?
If I’m right, the real picture of data management by the DEA is thus more likely this:
Data sources
One central collection and distribution point
▪ The Special Operations Division (SOD) within the DEA
▪ DEA-maintained DICE database
▪ DEA-maintained DICE database
Likely data receivers and users
Plus known recipients and “friends who have friends”:
▪ “About 10,000″ federal, state and local law enforcement agents
▪ All of their cop and prosecutor friends not on the list
▪ All of their cop and prosecutor friends’ non-cop friends
▪ “About 10,000″ federal, state and local law enforcement agents
▪ All of their cop and prosecutor friends not on the list
▪ All of their cop and prosecutor friends’ non-cop friends
Google seems to like these guys.
Wonder what they’re getting in return?
Wonder what they’re getting in return?
Again, this is not a DEA story, nor even just an NSA story. It’s a very broad data collection and dissemination story. We now know that the IRS can see what Google collects, if it’s passed to the DEA. Which means that the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security (and all of their friends, and many of their friends’ friends) probably have access to Google, Apple, Verizon data, if it gets into the DEA database as well. Is there IRS data in that database? We’ve been told that there is, and why wouldn’t there be? I can manufacture a justification just sitting here (hint: drugs and money laundering). Can the CIA, FBI and Homeland Security see the IRS data?
And who are those “19 other agencies” with a seat at the data-trafficking table? Anyone we should know about? The FBI is part of the Department of Justice, right? Does that mean anyone high enough in the DoJ can ask the FBI to query the database too?
How about those servants of business in the Dept of Commerce? Can they use the DICE database to get Google or IRS dirt on labor organizers and pass it to their friends at, say, Walmart — or to whatever other company the DC revolving door might land them at?
It’s time Reuters found out (or revealed) those 19 name, don’t you think?
Don’t Forget the DC Revolving Door — Take Care of Your Friends and They’ll Take Care of You
And then there’s the corruption angle. The revolving door is a lifeline to the next overpaid job for almost all higher-up federal employees. If I were conscienceless, I’d use that DEA-collected data to make sure the revolving door treated me well. In fact, I’d use it to make sure the revolving door treated me very well.
Money makes the world go around
After all, what better job application than to hand, say, McDonalds the online search and download preferences of their top 20 troublesome labor organizers — the behind-the-scenes people they can’t fire who are helping organize the low-wage people they can fire. Would that get you a spot on someone’s board of directors, or an office labeled “VP of Where Can We Golf?”
Could it get their corporate name (and donations) into your client list if you open your own “consulting” shop on Thank You Street (“K Street” to the rubes).
And that’s just the start of the corruption I can imagine. If I were political director for a conscienceless president, I’d make certain that certain reporters knew their habits were known. And I sure could chase a lot of pesky competition from a lot of state-wide no-name political races with a fistful of their google searches and private preferences.
Got more corrupt ideas than these? Post them in the comments. I’d love to see what the bright folks here — were they conscienceless — could come up with. I’ve also got a dozen ways to engage in personal vendettas running in my brain right now. The possibilities multiply themselves.
As I said, folks, this is not a DEA or NSA story. It’s a data-trafficking story. The only thing missing from the data collection are investment records (or is that where the IRS comes in?) and medical histories. With power like this, the world is the oyster of anyone who can get at it, and those who can — bet on it — are mainly corrupt. The least of their sins is being relentless careerist. If you want to find most of the predators, look where the prey — or everything known about them — is gathered.
Now the IRS Story — Reuters Says They’re Using the NSA Database Too
Reuters says the IRS has had access to DEA database data for a while. And just like the DEA, the IRS is abusing their use of it by lying about the sources of their tips and leads. Here’s a good Common Dreams summary of the story from writer Jon Queally:
Et Tu, IRS? Tax Agency Also Using Secret Spy Data?
Reuters reports IRS manual detailed DEA’s use of hidden intel evidenceFollowing up on exclusive reporting from earlier this week about how the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency uses NSA surveillance data and tips from a secretive unit called the Special Operations Divisions (SOD) to initiate investigations, Reuters on Thursday reveals that the Internal Revenue Service was aware of and may have also used these “unconstitutional” tactics.What’s troubling in both cases, according to legal experts, is the manner in which the agencies hide the true source of an investigation’s starting point—never revealing the use of the highly classified sources involved—and then “recreate” a parallel investigation to justify criminal findings.Additionally troubling is that the IRS and the DEA are only two of the more than twenty federal agencies that work in tandem with the SOD, leading to speculation that the practice of utilizing than hiding surveillance techniques that have not been properly documented or approved could be far-reaching.
From the Reuters story (a good click-through):
Exclusive: IRS manual detailed DEA’s use of hidden intelligence evidenceDetails of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years. …A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA’s Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007. The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.
And from an IRS document Reuters dug up:
“Special Operations Division has the ability to collect, collate, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate information and intelligence derived from worldwide multi-agency sources, including classified projects.[...] SOD converts extremely sensitive information into usable leads and tips which are then passed to the field offices for real-time enforcement activity against major international drug trafficking organizations.”
Adds the writer of the Common Dreams story:
While the documents stipulates that such procedures should only be used for “drug trafficking” investigations, DEA agents told Reuters that the practice has now been used for “organized crime and drug trafficking.”And that’s the problem, say critics, who note that surveillance operations like those developed by the NSA and the DEA are first said to only be used for counterterrorism, but then the public finds out they’re also being used for narcotics investigations. Next, new disclosures surface that criminal gangs are being targeted. Next, financial criminals. It appears a classic slippery slope.
Of course, they say they’re only involved in the program because they care deeply about drug trafficking. (Only they don’t.) Or financial crime. (Only they don’t.) Or something.
But we know better. We know by now they all just want access to All Data. We also know by now not to trust anything they say … don’t we? After all, if Obama can lie to Leno on national TV, why on god’s earth would any of them ever tell the truth? You’d have to be a whistle-blower to do that. And those people find the revolving door very tightly closed.
Apple’s Tim Cook, tech executives meet with Barack Obama to talk surveillance
President Barack Obama hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Google computer scientist Vint Cerf and other tech executives and civil liberties leaders on Thursday for a closed-door meeting about government surveillance, sources tell POLITICO.
The session, which Obama attended himself, followed a similar gathering earlier this week between top administration officials, tech-industry lobbyists and leading privacy hawks, the sources said. Those earlier, off-the-record discussions centered on the controversy surrounding the NSA as well as commercial privacy issues such as online tracking of consumers.
Continue Reading
The White House has declined to provide any details about its new outreach since the beginning of the week. A spokesman didn’t comment Thursday about the high-level meeting with the president — and the companies and groups invited also kept quiet when contacted by POLITICO.
Obama has promised more public debate about the country’s counterterrorism policies and privacy safeguards amid a deluge of criticism about the NSA’s controversial surveillance programs. As the steady stream of revelations continues, however, the White House has chosen to meet quietly with tech executives and consumer groups behind closed doors.
The administration’s outreach began Tuesday, when chief of staff Denis McDonough and general counsel Kathy Ruemmler convened a privacy-focused huddle in the Roosevelt Room. Joining them were representatives from the Information Technology Industry Council, TechNet and TechAmerica, which together represent a diverse swath of the tech industry — from major defense contractors to companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center were also present, sources said.
While the White House at the time declined to comment, one administration aide, speaking to POLITICO ahead of the Tuesday session, portrayed it as part of a larger campaign.
“This is one of a number of discussions the administration is having with experts and stakeholders in response to the president’s directive to have a national dialogue about how to best protect privacy in a digital era, including how to respect privacy while defending our national security,” the official said.
The second meeting Thursday, however, was organized with greater secrecy.
Those invited were mostly senior executives, including Cook, Stephenson and Cerf, as well as representatives of groups like the Center for Democracy and Technology and Gigi Sohn, the leader of Public Knowledge, according to three sources familiar with the meeting. Each declined comment for this story.
As the White House consulted with industry, though, some members of Congress continued their push for legislation adding new checks to federal surveillance programs.
“Trust and credibility depend on the appearance of fairness and accountability. My fear is that some of those agencies and institutions are in peril of losing it,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) during a speech Thursday at Harvard Law School.
The senator is sponsoring a bill that would create a new, adversarial public-interest defender before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves government requests to companies for user data. And Blumenthal also seeks to redo the FISC judge selection process to get more diverse voices on its bench.
“The purpose of the debate is to make sure we have both liberty and security,” he said.
What It Means to Be An NSA “Target”: New Information Shows Why We Need Immediate FISA Amendments Act Reform
An important New York Times investigation from today reporting that the NSA “is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans’ e-mail and text communications into and out of the country,” coupled with leaked documents published by the Guardian, seriously calls into question the accuracy of crucial statements made by government officials about NSA surveillance.
The government has previously tried to reassure the public about its use of FISA Amendments Act Section 702 surveillance practices, emphasizing that, under Section 702, the government may not “intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.” Indeed, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Senator Feinstein, in a letter to constituents who wrote to her expressing concern about the NSA’s spying program, said this: “[T]he government cannot listen to an American’s telephone calls or read their emails without a court warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause.”
We’ve written before about the word games the government plays in describing its surveillance practices: “acquire,” “collect,” and “content” are all old government favorites. The New York Times report proves Feinstein statement is false, and it’s clear it’s time to add “target” to the list of word games as well.
When “Target” Means Searching a Specific Person’s Communications
First, at least this much is clear: a “target” under the FAA must be (a) a non-US person and (b) not physically located within the United States. A “person,” for purposes of the FAA, includes individuals as well as “any group, entity, association, corporation, or foreign power.” Under the FAA, the government can thus “target” a single individual (e.g., Vladimir Putin), a small group of people (e.g., Pussy Riot), or a formal corporation or entity (e.g., Gazprom).
So, when the NSA decides to “target” someone (or something), it turns its specific surveillance vacuum at them. The NSA then believes it can intercept and analyze all electronic communications of the target (telephone conversations, email conversations, chat, web browsing, etc) so long as the “target” is overseas and remains overseas. As others have noted, this includes conversations the “target” has with Americans, which would then be “incidentally” collected. Keep in mind this does not require a warrant or even the approval of a court, which is only one way Senator Feinstein’s reassurance was demonstrably false. But there’s still more.
When “Target” Means Searching Everyone’s Communications
Once a target is established, the NSA believes it can expand the sweep of its interception far more broadly than the communications of the particular, identified target. Notably, the NSA’s procedures state (emphasis added):
[I]n those cases where NSA seeks to acquire communications about the target that are not to or from the target, NSA will either employ an Internet Protocol filter to ensure that the person from whom it seeks to obtain foreign intelligence information is located overseas, or it will target Internet links that terminate in a foreign country.
In plain English: the NSA believes it not only can (1) intercept the communications of the target, but also (2) intercept communications about a target, even if the target isn’t a party to the communication. The most likely way to assess if a communication is “about” a target is to conduct a content analysis of communications, probably based on specific search terms or selectors.
And that, folks, is what we call a content dragnet.
Importantly, under the NSA’s rules, when the agency intercepts communications about a target, the author or speaker of those communications does not, thereby, become a target: the target remains the original, non-US person. But, because the target remains a non-US person, the most robust protection for Americans’ communications under the FISA Amendments Act (and, indeed, the primary reassurance the government has given about the surveillance) flies out the window. If you communicate about a target of NSA surveillance, your citizenship is irrelevant: the only thing standing between you and NSA surveillance is your IP address or the fiber optic path through which your communications flow.
Privacy Protections Must Be Stronger than an IP Address or the Path our Communications Happen to Take
The NSA only limits this type of broad content dragnet in two ways: a filter based on IP addresses or directing its surveillance at “Internet links that terminate in a foreign country.”1
Presumably, the IP filter is used in circumstances where the NSA’s surveillance is being conducted on U.S. soil. The agency simply filters out known U.S. IP addresses and scans the content of the rest. But there are a host of reasons that an American’s IP address might not be representative of their location. First, there are a variety of privacy-enhancing technologies – like Tor or VPNs – that could easily make wholly domestic communications appear as though they were occurring overseas. Second, IP addresses, in general, are imperfect measures of a person’s location: if a large ISP (like, for example, AT&T) is assigned a block of IP addresses, an IP address assigned to someone in Canada one day could be assigned to an American the next, and vice versa. And all this, of course, says nothing about nationality or legal status: a given IP address says nothing about the citizenship of the person using the device.
The only other limitation on this type of content dragnet is targeting Internet links in foreign countries. Again, like IP filtering, this is not an effective way to ensure that Americans’ communications are not intercepted and analyzed. In particular, because third-party providers (like Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft) tend to have redundant and distributed operations around the world, there’s a very real chance that your wholly domestic email, sent between two U.S. citizens might travel and be “stored” on data centers around the world. Targeting an “Internet link” that terminates abroad would inevitably carry large amounts of purely “domestic” communications.
An Example: Targeting Vladimir Putin (and Everyone Else)
At this point, it might be useful to provide an example. Say the NSA wants to target Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, under Section 702. Putin is (a) a non-US-person, (b) (usually) located outside the United States, and (c) would clearly be expected to communicate foreign intelligence information. He is thus eligible for targeting under Section 702. The NSA would then intercept Putin’s calls, emails, chats, and other communications (including those directed at the United States and involving United States citizens).
Under the NSA’s rules, though, the agency can also intercept all communications about Putin. To accomplish this, NSA presumably performs a content analysis — probably occurring both within the United States and overseas — of large swaths of communications, using deep packet inspection to root out electronic communications about Putin.
In this example, under the NSA’s procedures, a U.S. citizen sending an email about Putin’s frequent, shirtless poses to another U.S. citizen could have their communications intercepted and analyzed by NSA under a variety of conditions:
• if they’re outside the U.S.;
• if they’re inside the U.S., using Tor, and their IP address looks like it’s outside the U.S.;
• if they’re inside the U.S., using a VPN, and their IP address looks like it’s outside the U.S.;
• if they’re inside the U.S. and their IP address doesn’t accurately reflect their location for any host of reasons;
• if they’re inside the U.S. and their communications are backed up or stored abroad.
In each of these examples, the NSA believes it has the authority to intercept your communications, even though in most examples the person doing the communicating is (1) a US person, (2) located within the United States, (3) communicating with someone within the United States, and (4) not communicating with the “target” of an investigation. While the NSA may not intercept every email about Putin’s shirtless poses, based on its procedures, it believes it has the authority. Such an interpretation of the government’s authority under the FAA violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. Not to mention the Constitution.
After a Full and Public Investigation, We Need to Rein in the NSA’s Use of Section 702
Lately, the focus of the NSA debate has shifted to the NSA’s domestic associational tracking program — the collection and storage of millions of Americans call record information. And rightly so: the program is unconstitutional, and EFF has filed suit to stop it immediately. But Section 702 should not be forgotten: it needs attention — and reform —as well.
As the debate continues, when Diane Feinstein tells you that “the government cannot listen to an American’s telephone calls or read their emails without a court warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause,” she’s not telling you the truth: the government can read your emails without ever even asking a judge and without even attempting to demonstrate that probable cause exists, just so long as your emails have a “foreign” IP address or your communications happen to leave the country.
Our constitutional right to communicate without our government listening in has been fundamentally reinterpreted and diminished in secret: the NSA’s procedures show that all that stands between government surveillance of our communication is an IP address. But the constitution demands more.Join us, and over 500,000 others, in calling on Congress to establish a special committee to investigate the NSA’s domestic spying operation, to rein in the laws the government uses to conduct this type of spying, and to hold elected officials accountable for misleading the American public.
1. The NSA’s use of the term “internet links” is not clear, and the procedures don’t spell out precisely what they mean. We assume “internet link” to mean telecom switches and hubs located overseas.
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