[CARTOON] NSA Spying

Via: California Political Review

Former CIA Dir. Hayden: World Outrage Over US Snooping 'Political Theater'

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden tells Newsmax a report that the National Security Agency spied on world leaders is "terribly damaging" — but he believes the outrage expressed by those leaders is to some extent "political theater."

The retired 4-star Air Force General also says the anti-terrorism efforts begun by President George W. Bush and continued by the Obama administration are "lawful, effective, and appropriate."

Declassified: The Simple Roadmap That Helped Create Over $41 Billion in New WealthHayden served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from May 2006 until February 2009, shortly after Obama’s inauguration. He also served as Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) from 1999 to 2005, and is now on the Advisory Board of LIGNET.com, a Washington, D.C.-based intelligence analysis and forecasting service affiliated with Newsmax.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV on Friday, Hayden was asked if NSA leaker Edward Snowden's claim that every call and every Internet transaction in the United States goes through the NSA is accurate.

"No, period," he declares. "It's not accurate."

Hayden also discusses the new report in The Guardian asserting that the NSA monitored the phone calls of 35 world leaders — after President Obama this week called German Chancellor Angela Merkel to insist the U.S. wasn't monitoring her calls.

Via: Newsmax

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[CARTOON] It’s a Small World After All

Via: California Political Review

Report: NSA Spied on 124 Billion Phone Calls in One Month

The National Security Agency recorded information about more than 124 billion phone calls during a 30-day period earlier this year, including around 3 billion calls from U.S. sources, according to a tally from top-secret documents released by multiple news outlets.

Documents revealing details about the NSA’s Boundless Informant program show that information regarding billions of phone calls and computer communications was collected by the agency from across the world.

Boundless Informant “allows users to select a country on a map and view the meta data volume and select details about the collections against that country,” according to the Guardian, which first reported on the top secret program earlier this year.

Multiple leaked screenshots of the Boundless Informant program show that information on around 124.8 billion phone calls were collected in just 30-days this year, according to documents released by the Guardian and other news sites.

The documents provide a window into the sheer volume of data being collected by the NSA as late as March of this year, according to the Guardian.

Critics of the NSA’s multiple data collection programs, which include PRISM, argue that innocent Americans run the risk of having their personal communications monitored. Its defenders maintain that the program has been a key tool in the fight against terrorism.

Via: WFB

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White House national security official fired for critical tweets

A White House national security official has been fired after he was revealed to be the man behind an anonymous Twitter account critical of the Obama administration. 

A senior administration official confirmed to Fox News that Jofi Joseph, a director in the nuclear non-proliferation section of the White House's national security section, was fired last week after he was discovered as being the man behind the "@netsecwonk" Twitter account. Joseph's firing was first reported by The Daily Beast. 

Joseph admitted he was responsible for the account in an email to Politico Monday evening, writing, "What started out as an intended parody account of DC culture developed over time into a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments. I bear complete responsibility for this affair and I sincerely apologize to everyone I insulted."

The account had been active since February 2011 and had been used to criticize the administration's policies and occasionally the personal qualities of its top officials. 

For example, according to Tweets saved by the Daily Beast before the "@natsecwonk" account was shutdown last week, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett was referred to as a "vacuous cipher." 

Via: Fox News Political

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[CARTOON] NSA Email Snooping

Via: California Political Review

US National Security Agency 'spied on French diplomats'

The US National Security Agency has spied on French diplomats in Washington and at the UN, according to the latest claims in Le Monde newspaper.

NSA internal memos obtained by Le Monde detailed the use of a sophisticated surveillance programme, known as Genie.

US spies allegedly hacked foreign networks, introducing the spyware into the software, routers and firewalls of millions of machines.

It comes a day after claims the NSA tapped millions of phones in France.

The details in the latest Le Monde article are based on leaks from ex-intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, through Glen Greenwald, the outgoing Guardian journalist, who is feeding the material from Brazil, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris.

It comes on the day the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is in London meeting foreign counterparts to discuss Syria.

'Spy implants'

The Le Monde report sets out details of Genie, an NSA surveillance programme in which spyware implants were introduced remotely to overseas computers, including foreign embassies.

Via: BBC News

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Furious Judge Jeanine Pirro Nukes Kathleen Sebelius

FOX NEWS INSIDER -  Judge Jeanine Pirro tackled the ObamaCare website catastrophe and why the Obama administration will not confirm how many people signed up for health care so far. Check out her Opening Statement from last night’s Justice in the video above and transcript below:

It's a system that's supposed to be used by everybody, so that ObamaCare can be bought by anybody. But so far, the health care website has worked for practically nobody. Welcome to the Land of Oz!

And now, we find out the people who are supposed to guide us through the ObamaCare maze and enter our private data - Social Security numbers, date of birth and personal identifiable information - the ObamaCare "navigators,” don't even go through basic background or fingerprint checks.

But it gets better, ladies and gentlemen. If those navigators have a prior conviction, it will not disqualify them, anyway.  An outstanding warrant?  No problem! In the midst of bankruptcy? No problem!

Now, forget the obvious privacy issues. Has anyone in Washington ever heard of identity theft?

But then again, why would we be shocked to learn there's no screening by these Washington bozos?

You remember Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker, and the Navy Yard shooter. They obviously weren't properly screened.

So why is it that the a key part of the president's signature legislation - for which Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius had more than three years to prepare - can't even get the website off the ground. 

Via: Fox News Insider

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'No se puede' ObamaCare website but 'Si se puede' spying on the Mexican president

Thank God that something works in Washington.  We can't do a website site for ObamaCare but we can get in the Mexican president's system and read his emails.

This is from Spiegel & news reports:

"The National Security Agency (NSA) has a division for particularly difficult missions. Called "Tailored Access Operations" (TAO), this department devises special methods for special targets. That category includes surveillance of neighboring Mexico, and in May 2010, the division reported its mission accomplished. A report classified as "top secret" said: "TAO successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account."

According to the NSA, this email domain was also used by cabinet members, and contained "diplomatic, economic and leadership communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico's political system and internal stability."

The president's office, the NSA reported, was now "a lucrative source."

This operation, dubbed "Flatliquid," is described in a document leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, which SPIEGEL has now had the opportunity to analyze. The case is likely to cause further strain on relations between Mexico and the United States, which have been tense since Brazilian television network TV Globo revealed in September that the NSA monitored then-presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto and others around him in the summer of 2012. Peña Nieto, now Mexico's president, summoned the US ambassador in the wake of that news, but confined his reaction to demanding an investigation into the matter."

Via: American Thinker

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Lessons from the Shutdown

Well, the “government shutdown” is finally over.  If you were like me, you were probably wondering how the government can be considered “shut down” if the NSA is still spying on us, the IRS is still auditing us, and the President hadn’t been kicked out of HIS house (which, if you will remember, also sits on federal land).  All in all, the shutdown was not nearly as destructive as we had heard it would be.

The end of the world did not come.  Meteorites did not scour all life from the Earth’s surface.  Our nation did not fragment into a Mad Max-esque wasteland of biker gangs and apocalyptic warlords.  In many ways, you would never have known that there was even a shutdown going on, provided you didn’t try to visit a national park or expect a paycheck for your military service.

Nevertheless, there are a number of observations we can make about the shutdown, and lessons we can learn from it.

First, the Obama administration is not above shutting down the government and creating a huge amount of furor, if it will help distract attention away from the numerous scandals that have plagued this administration.  Let’s face it – the “shutdown” was pure political theater, and nothing more.  Obama actively worked to bring it to pass, pretending to want to “compromise” and “find solutions” while really refusing to negotiate with House Republicans and actively presenting them with “deals” so unpalatable that no reasonable person could have accepted them.  Then, when the “shutdown” actually happened, amazingly all the signs and barricades and other stage props were instantly rolled out, almost as if they’d been prepared and set aside for weeks in anticipation of the moment.  This “shutdown” was all about grandstanding and showmanship, and giving Obama and the news media the opportunity to furl their brows and worry about those evil Republicans who want less spending and more freedom for the individual.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Shutdown Delays U.N. Probe of U.S. Human Rights Record; GOP Blamed

(CNSNews.com) – A United Nations’ review of the United States’ compliance with international human rights norms will not happen as scheduled because of the partial government shutdown, and the chairman of the reviewing body blames the Republican Party.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Committee was due to have examined the U.S. record on Thursday and Friday, but reluctantly agreed to postpone the session at the request of the U.S. government.

The discussion, which is expected to include scrutiny of such controversial issues as Guantanamo Bay detentions, National Security Agency surveillance and “stand your ground” laws, has been moved to next March.

The committee’s chairman, Nigel Rodley, said as he opened a three-week session on Monday that the panel was normally unwilling to grant extensions at short notice, but he felt he had no choice on this occasion.

The U.S. delegation had made it clear that it was willing to participate in the scheduled review, but could not, “for reasons that had been widely covered in the media.”

Rodley, a British international law professor, then went further, laying the blame for the rare postponement squarely at the door of the GOP and its stance on Obamacare.

Via: CNS News
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I’m from the Government and I’m Here to Spy on You

Trusting the government costs you your privacy, your freedom, and even your stability

People who use black tape to cover the cameras on their home and office computers, iPads, tablets and cell phones,  can no longer be written off as ‘paranoids’.

The big portals showing the masses what the government is really up to all came last April, and until Obama’s gone from the White House, civilian life will never be the same.

It was last April when a judge in Texas denied a request by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for what he described as a warrant to remotely “hack a computer suspected of criminal use”, raising questions about the legal requirement for the government to use computer hacking techniques in investigations. (Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2013).

“By “surreptitiously installing software”—a technique typically associated with computer hackers—investigators are able to infiltrate computers and gather extensive information, according to a document in the case.

“The judge’s order said the data the FBI could obtain includes “search terms that the user entered into any Internet search engine, and records of user-typed Web addresses.

“The government also is seeking email contents, documents and chat-messaging logs on the computer, as well as to take photographs for 30 days using the computer’s built-in camera, the document states.” (emphasis CFP’s).

So Big Brother Government does have the ability to watch you right on your handy computer’s built-in camera.

Via: Canada Free Press

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NSA collects millions of e-mail address books globally

The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device with information stored on remote servers.

Rather than targeting individual users, the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world’s e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets.

During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation. Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million per year.

Each day, the presentation said, the NSA collects contacts from an estimated 500,000 buddy lists on live-chat services as well as from the “in-box” displays of Web-based e-mail accounts.
The collection depends on secret arrangements with foreign telecommunications companies or allied intelligence services in control of facilities that direct traffic along the Internet’s main data routes.
Although the collection takes place overseas, two senior U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged that it sweeps in the contacts of many Americans. They declined to offer an estimate but did not dispute that the number is likely to be in the millions or tens of millions.

Via: Washington Post

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Obama administration continues to crash in cyberspace

The Obama administration’s continuing multi-billion dollar screw ups in cyberspace are creating public panic.

It would be natural for people suddenly cut off from EBT cards paying for groceries to feed hungry families, to panic.

Lost in this latest denial to the poor and needy is the fact that the Barack Obama administration is hopelessly lost—somewhere in cyberspace.

First came Healthcare.gov, whose site had to be shut down when it couldn’t be accessed by John Q. Public signing up for ObamaCare,  then came the technical glitches which sparked 10 fiery explosions over 13 months at NSA’s newest and largest showcase data storage facility in Utah.

Although it’s reported back up and running this morning, this weekend it was the food stamp debit-style EBT cards rendered useless for people in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure.

System failures across the land seem to be Obama’s latest scandal.

“At about 9 a.m. Saturday, reports from across the country began pouring in that customers’ EBT cards were not working in stores.  (CBS Boston, Oct. 12, 2013)

Via: Canada Free Press

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$2 Billion NSA Spy Center is Going Up in Flames

The National Security Agency's $2 billion mega spy center is going up in flames.

Technical glitches have sparked fiery explosions within the NSA's newest and largest data storage facility in Utah, destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and delaying the facility's opening by one year.

And no one seems to know how to fix it.

For a country that prides itself on being a technology leader, not knowing the electrical capacity requirements for a system as large as this is quite questionable.

Within the last 13 months, at least 10 electric surges have each cost about $100,000 in damages, according to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal. Experts agree that the system, which requires about 64 megawatts of electricity—that's about a $1 million a month energy bill--isn't able to run all of its computers and servers while keeping them cool, which is likely triggering the meltdowns.

RELATED: GOVERNMENT WASTES MORE THAN YOU THINK

The contractor that designed the flawed system—Pennsylvania-based Klingstubbins--said in a statement that it has "uncovered the issue" and is working on "implementing a permanent fix."

But that's not the case, according to the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), which is in charge of overseeing the data center's construction. ACE disagreed with the contractor and said the meltdowns are "not yet sufficiently understood." 

A report by ACE in the Wall Street Journal said the government has incomplete information about the design of the electrical system that could pose new problems if settings need to change on circuit breakers. The report also said regular quality controls in design and construction were bypassed in an effort to "fast track" the project.

Via: The Fiscal Times

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Bush had higher approval rating than Obama at this point in his presidency

President George W. Bush held a higher approval rating in October of his fifth year in office than President Obama.

Obama’s approval rating stands at 37 percent with a 53 percent disapproval rating, according to an Associated Press/GfK poll released Wednesday October 9.

At the same point in the first year of his second term, Bush held a higher approval rating even as he battled criticisms of his handling of weeks-old Hurricane Katrina.

Bush held a 39 percent approval rating in an AP/Ipsos poll conducted between October 3-5, 2005. He also registered at 39 percent in an October 13-16 Gallup poll before gaining two points to clock in at 42 percent between October 21-23.

Bush held a 40 percent approval rating in an October 12-24 Pew poll.

Obama, still reeling from his administration’s IRS and NSA surveillance scandals, is clearly not escaping the government shutdown unscathed.

But at least Obama’s bully pulpit rhetoric seems to be working. 63 percent of Americans blame Republicans for refusing to cooperate with Obama, while 52 percent note Obama’s lack of cooperation.

Via: Daily Caller

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U.S. Has Cash to Close Memorials, Can’t Afford Enforcing FOIA

The U.S. government can spend money shutting down and barricading memorials around Washington D.C., but it won’t dedicate the necessary resources to obey transparency laws, using the shutdown as an opportunity to ignore the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Without the accountability and transparency that FOIA is meant to provide, the government will essentially operate in secrecy. Nothing, not even a temporary, partisan impasse among lawmakers, should justify a furlough in the enforcement of government transparency laws. But that’s exactly what’s happening, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a decades-old nonprofit that works to protect journalists’ FOIA rights.

“Parts of the federal government have declared transparency non-essential, deciding requests under the Freedom of Information Act will go unprocessed during the shutdown,” the group says in an announcement posted on its website this week. “Some agencies have indicated they won’t even accept FOIA requests until everything is back to normal and have suspended their websites.”  Additionally, those seeking information from federal agencies should be “prepared for longer than usual delays in receiving the requested records,” the group says.

Among the federal agencies that have officially announced they won’t process FOIA requests during the shutdown are the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Others—like the Agriculture, Interior and Transportation departments—have simply disabled their FOIA websites without notifying the public. Some have confirmed “reduced FOIA operations.” They include the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Government Information Services and the National Security Administration (NSA).

Even when FOIA is supposedly in full force, stonewalling and unnecessary delays are the norm when requesting public records from the government. Judicial Watch knows this firsthand because FOIA is a valuable tool in our work and JW files dozens of requests with a number of federal agencies every year. Generally the government must respond to a FOIA request within 20 days, though that rarely occurs and JW must take legal action to force compliance.

Just this week JW filed a FOIA request with the Department of the Interior for information related to blocking public access to national monuments in Washington D.C. due to the federal government shutdown. JW also seeks all records related to the cancellation of planned visits by veterans’ groups to the National World War II Memorial due to the shutdown. In the official request JW reminds the agency of a 2009 memorandum issued by President Obama. It states: “All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA…The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.”

Via: Judicial Watch

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A government looking for witches will find them

While the nation’s political class has been fixated on a potential government shutdown in Washington this week, the NSA has continued to spy on all Americans and by its ambiguity and shrewd silence seems to be acknowledging slowly that the scope of its spying is truly breathtaking.

The Obama administration is of the view that the NSA can spy on anyone anywhere. The president believes that federal statutes enable the secret FISA court to authorize the NSA to capture any information it desires about any persons without identifying the persons and without a showing of probable cause of criminal behavior on the part of the persons to be spied upon. This is the same mindset that the British government had with respect to the colonists. It, too, believed that British law permitted a judge in secret in Britain to issue general warrants to be executed in the colonies at the whim of British agents.

General warrants do not state the name of the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized, and they do not have the necessity of individualized probable cause as their linchpin. They simply authorize the bearer to search wherever he wishes for whatever he wants. General warrants were universally condemned by colonial leaders across the ideological spectrum -- from those as radical as Sam Adams to those as establishment as George Washington, and from those as individualistic as Thomas Jefferson to those as big-government as Alexander Hamilton. We know from the literature of the times that the whole purpose of the Fourth Amendment -- with its requirements of individualized probable cause and specifically identifying the target -- is to prohibit general warrants.

And yet, the FISA court has been issuing general warrants and the NSA executing them since at least 2004.

Via: Fox News

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