NSA Recorded the CONTENT of 'EVERY SINGLE' CALL in a Foreign Country ... and Also In AMERICA?
The Washington Post reports – based upon documents leaked by Edward Snowden – that the NSA is recording “every single”phone call in one foreign country (at the request of the NSA, the Post is withholding the name of the country. However, the Post notes that the NSA is also planning on expanding the program to other nations).
The Post also reports that the NSA has the ability to “reach into the past” andretroactively go back and listen to the calls later.
Sadly, this is also occurring in America.
Specifically, there is substantial evidence from top NSA and FBI whistleblowers that the government is recording the content of our calls … word-for-word.
NSA whistleblower Russel Tice – a key source in the 2005 New York Times report that blew the lid off the Bush administration’s use of warrantless wiretapping – says that the content and metadata of all digital communications are being tapped by the NSA.
Tice notes:
They’re collecting content …word-for-word.***You can’t trust these people. They lie, and they lie a lot.
Documents leaked by Edward Snowden to Glenn Greenwald show:
But what we’re really talking about here is a localized system that prevents any form of electronic communication from taking place without its being stored and monitored by the National Security Agency.It doesn’t mean that they’re listening to every call, it means they’re storing every call and have the capability to listen to them at any time, and it does mean that they’re collecting millions upon millions upon millions of our phone and email records.
CNET reported last year:
Earlier reports have indicated that the NSA has the ability to record nearly all domestic and international phone calls — in case an analyst needed to access the recordings in the future. A Wired magazinearticle last year disclosed that the NSA has established “listening posts” that allow the agency to collect and sift through billions of phone calls through a massive new data center in Utah, “whether they originate within the country or overseas.” That includes not just metadata, but also the contents of the communications.***Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the head of the Senate Intelligence committee, separately acknowledged this week that the agency’s analysts have the ability to access the “content of a call.”
NBC News reported last year:
NBC News has learned that under the post-9/11 Patriot Act, the government has been collecting records on every phone call made in the U.S.
Former FBI counter-terrorism agent Tim Clemente told CNN:
There’s a way to look at digital communications in the past.
In other words, if an analyst wants to spy on you, he can pull up your past communications (Remember, the private Internet Archive has been archiving web pages since the 1990s. So the NSA has undoubtedly been doing the same thing with digital communications).
Tice and top NSA whistleblower William Binney confirmed to PBS that the NSA is recording every word of every phone call made within the United States:
[PBS INTERVIEWER] 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.
Binney tells Washington’s Blog:
It would have to come from the upstream collection/recording “Fairview etc” [background here andhere] with – probably – telcom cooperation. That’s how the former FBI agent Tim Clemente could say on CNN that they had ways of getting back to the content of the phone call from one of the bombers to his wife prior to the bombing. Now we are starting to see some of the monitoring of US citizens on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) [background].What’s new about the PSTN network is the content. We have heard a lot about phone metadata but not content. This is what I have been saying for a long time: that they are taking and storingcontent too. It’s not just about metadata. So [NSA's claim that it doesn't record the phonecalls of Americans is] just another government lie.
Bonus:
Snowden: “Is It Really Terrorism That We’re Stopping? I Say No. The Bottom Line Is That Terrorism … Has Always Been a Cover For Actions”
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 3:47 AM
Edward Snowden on TED: More Revelations to Come; Here's How We Take Back the Internet
Here's an extremely interesting, educational, and important video interview with Edward Snowden on the right to privacy.
Appearing by telepresence robot, Edward Snowden speaks at TED2014 about surveillance and Internet freedom. The right to data privacy, he suggests, is not a partisan issue, but requires a fundamental rethink of the role of the internet in our lives — and the laws that protect it. "Your rights matter," he say, "because you never know when you're going to need them." Chris Anderson interviews, with special guest Tim Berners-Lee.
Link if video does not play: Here's How We Take Back the Internet
The interview is about 35 minutes long. Please play it in entirety. It will be worth your time.
It took me nearly two hours playing and replaying parts of the video to produce the following partial transcript.
Partial Transcript
Speaking about Dick Cheney, Snowden says "We should be suspicious about the same overblown claims about damage to national security from these kind of officials. But, But, let's assume these people really believe it. I would argue they have a kind of narrow conception of national security. The prerogatives of people like Dick Cheney do not keep the nation safe. The public interest is not always the same as the national interest. Going to war with people who are not our enemies in places that are not a threat doesn't make us safe. And that applies whether it's in Iraq or on the internet."
TED: It's alleged that you have stolen 1.7 million documents. It seems only a few hundred of them have been shared with journalists so far. Are there more revelation to come?
Snowden: There are absolutely more revelations to come. Some of the most reporting to be done is yet to come.
TED: This is a story that for a lot of techies is the single most shocking thing that they have heard in the last few months. It's about a program called Bull Run. Could you explain what that is?
Snowden: Bull Run is, and we have to thank the NSA for their candor. This is a program named after a civil war battle. They reason I believe it is named that way is they target our own infrastructure. Their programs intentionally mislead corporate partners. They tell corporate partners these are safe standards. Hey, we need to work with you to secure the system. But in reality their giving bad advice to these companies that makes them degrade the security of their services. They are building in back doors, that not only the NSA can exploit, but anyone else who has time and money to research and find, to let themselves in to the world's communications. This is really dangerous because if we lose a single standard, if we lose the trust of something like SSL, which was specifically targeted by Bull Run, we will live in a less safe world overall. We won't be able to access our banks, and we will not be able to access commerce without worrying about people monitoring those communications and subverting them for their own use.
TED: Do those same decisions also potentially open America up to cyber attacks from other sources?
Snowden: Absolutely. If we hack a Chinese business and steal their secrets, if we hack a government office in Berlin and steal their secrets, that has less value to the American people than making sure that the Chinese cannot get access to our secrets. By reducing the security of our communications, they are not only putting the world at risk, they are putting America at risk in a fundamental way. Intellectual property is the foundation of our economy. If we put that at risk with weak security, we are going to be paying for it for years.
TED: They have made a calculation it is worth doing this as part of America's defense against terrorism.
Snowden: When you look at the results of these programs to stop terrorism, you will see that is unfounded. You don't have to take my word for it. The first court that has reviewed this outside the secrecy arrangement, called these program Orwellian and likely unconstitutional. Two independent White House panels that reviewed all of the classified evidence said these programs have never stopped a single terrorist attack in the United States. So is it really terrorism that we are stopping? Do these programs have any value at all?
TED: [pointing to a newspaper clip that reads "I would love to put a bullet in his head one Pentagon official told BuzzFeed"] How are you coping with this?
Snowden: I've made clear, again and again and again that I go to sleep every morning thinking about what I can do for the American people. I don't want to harm my government. I want to help my government. But the fact they are completely willing to ignore due process, they are willing to declare guilt without ever seeing a trial, these are things we need to work against. We shouldn't be threatening citizens. We shouldn't be criminalizing journalists. And whatever part I can do to see that end, I am happy to do that. .....
[Regarding optimism] Snowden: I am living proof that an individual can go head to head against the most powerful adversaries and the most powerful intelligence agencies around the world, and win. That is something we need to take hope from. Journalism is not a crime, communication is not a crime and we should not be monitored on our everyday activities.
TED: The New York Times called for amnesty. Would you welcome the chance to come back to America?
Snowden: Absolutely. The principles that have been the foundation of this project have been the public interest. ... The government has hinted they want some kind of deal. That they want me to compromise the journalists with which I have been working, to come back. And i want to make it very clear, that I did not do this to be safe. I did this to do what was right. And I am not going to stop my work in the public's interest, just to benefit myself. [applause] ... We don't have to give up our privacy to have good government. We don't have to give up our liberty to have security. And I think by working together, we can have both open government and private lives. And I look forward to working with everyone around the world to see that happen. Thank you very much. [Standing ovation]
Mish Comments
I repeat my belief that Snowden is a hero and a true patriot. If you think otherwise, please play the video. You may change your mind.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
Appearing by telepresence robot, Edward Snowden speaks at TED2014 about surveillance and Internet freedom. The right to data privacy, he suggests, is not a partisan issue, but requires a fundamental rethink of the role of the internet in our lives — and the laws that protect it. "Your rights matter," he say, "because you never know when you're going to need them." Chris Anderson interviews, with special guest Tim Berners-Lee.
Link if video does not play: Here's How We Take Back the Internet
The interview is about 35 minutes long. Please play it in entirety. It will be worth your time.
It took me nearly two hours playing and replaying parts of the video to produce the following partial transcript.
Partial Transcript
Speaking about Dick Cheney, Snowden says "We should be suspicious about the same overblown claims about damage to national security from these kind of officials. But, But, let's assume these people really believe it. I would argue they have a kind of narrow conception of national security. The prerogatives of people like Dick Cheney do not keep the nation safe. The public interest is not always the same as the national interest. Going to war with people who are not our enemies in places that are not a threat doesn't make us safe. And that applies whether it's in Iraq or on the internet."
TED: It's alleged that you have stolen 1.7 million documents. It seems only a few hundred of them have been shared with journalists so far. Are there more revelation to come?
Snowden: There are absolutely more revelations to come. Some of the most reporting to be done is yet to come.
TED: This is a story that for a lot of techies is the single most shocking thing that they have heard in the last few months. It's about a program called Bull Run. Could you explain what that is?
Snowden: Bull Run is, and we have to thank the NSA for their candor. This is a program named after a civil war battle. They reason I believe it is named that way is they target our own infrastructure. Their programs intentionally mislead corporate partners. They tell corporate partners these are safe standards. Hey, we need to work with you to secure the system. But in reality their giving bad advice to these companies that makes them degrade the security of their services. They are building in back doors, that not only the NSA can exploit, but anyone else who has time and money to research and find, to let themselves in to the world's communications. This is really dangerous because if we lose a single standard, if we lose the trust of something like SSL, which was specifically targeted by Bull Run, we will live in a less safe world overall. We won't be able to access our banks, and we will not be able to access commerce without worrying about people monitoring those communications and subverting them for their own use.
TED: Do those same decisions also potentially open America up to cyber attacks from other sources?
Snowden: Absolutely. If we hack a Chinese business and steal their secrets, if we hack a government office in Berlin and steal their secrets, that has less value to the American people than making sure that the Chinese cannot get access to our secrets. By reducing the security of our communications, they are not only putting the world at risk, they are putting America at risk in a fundamental way. Intellectual property is the foundation of our economy. If we put that at risk with weak security, we are going to be paying for it for years.
TED: They have made a calculation it is worth doing this as part of America's defense against terrorism.
Snowden: When you look at the results of these programs to stop terrorism, you will see that is unfounded. You don't have to take my word for it. The first court that has reviewed this outside the secrecy arrangement, called these program Orwellian and likely unconstitutional. Two independent White House panels that reviewed all of the classified evidence said these programs have never stopped a single terrorist attack in the United States. So is it really terrorism that we are stopping? Do these programs have any value at all?
TED: [pointing to a newspaper clip that reads "I would love to put a bullet in his head one Pentagon official told BuzzFeed"] How are you coping with this?
Snowden: I've made clear, again and again and again that I go to sleep every morning thinking about what I can do for the American people. I don't want to harm my government. I want to help my government. But the fact they are completely willing to ignore due process, they are willing to declare guilt without ever seeing a trial, these are things we need to work against. We shouldn't be threatening citizens. We shouldn't be criminalizing journalists. And whatever part I can do to see that end, I am happy to do that. .....
[Regarding optimism] Snowden: I am living proof that an individual can go head to head against the most powerful adversaries and the most powerful intelligence agencies around the world, and win. That is something we need to take hope from. Journalism is not a crime, communication is not a crime and we should not be monitored on our everyday activities.
TED: The New York Times called for amnesty. Would you welcome the chance to come back to America?
Snowden: Absolutely. The principles that have been the foundation of this project have been the public interest. ... The government has hinted they want some kind of deal. That they want me to compromise the journalists with which I have been working, to come back. And i want to make it very clear, that I did not do this to be safe. I did this to do what was right. And I am not going to stop my work in the public's interest, just to benefit myself. [applause] ... We don't have to give up our privacy to have good government. We don't have to give up our liberty to have security. And I think by working together, we can have both open government and private lives. And I look forward to working with everyone around the world to see that happen. Thank you very much. [Standing ovation]
Mish Comments
I repeat my belief that Snowden is a hero and a true patriot. If you think otherwise, please play the video. You may change your mind.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
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