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NSA Spying on Americans in the Green Zone - Via Center for Democracy and Technology:
The National Security Agency is intercepting and retaining communications of innocent Americans in Iraq's so-called "Green Zone"; agency workers even pass around the most titillating conversations, according to explosive allegations made by two NSA whistleblowers in an ABC News segment airing tonight. According to the report, collection of telephone conversations U.S. soldiers and aid workers in Iraq had with their families in the U.S. continued even after NSA analysts knew that the telephone numbers on which they were eavesdropping belonged to Americans who had no ties to terrorism. The report calls into question assurances the NSA and Justice Department repeatedly gave Congress that internally enforced "minimization procedures" are adequate to protect the private conversations of Americans.
(Read Original Article - Via Center for Democracy and Technology.)
NSA Snooped on Innocent Americans' Private Calls from Iraq, Former Operators Charge - Via Threat Level:
The National Security Agency routinely listened in on the intimate and innocent phone calls of Americans in Iraq, including government personnel, journalists and aid workers, as they called back into the United States, according to two former NSA operators who spoke to ABC News.
The accusations that the NSA routinely listened in on Americans' phone calls contradicts the Administration's repeated claims that its secret spying did not listen to any Americans other than suspected terrorists.
The conduct also appears to violate the rules that govern when the NSA can listen in to Americans' making calls overseas-- which then required high-level approval for each target. read more »
Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans - Tonight on Nightline - Via ABC News: Nightline :
U.S. Officers' "Phone Sex" Intercepted; Senate Demanding Answers
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia. read more »
I don't see anything on their site yet, but the closing comments on tonights Nightline says that Thursdays show will include interviews with ex-employees who listened to those wiretaps of phone calls that supposedly did not include innocent US citizens.
If NSA Spying Not A 'Dragnet,' What Were They Doing? - Via Threat Level:
This was not a driftnet. This was not dragnet.
The government doesn't and didn't have a massive computer listening into phone calls and emails inside the United States listening for keywords. That technology you've seen in movies like the Bourne Identity -- we don't use that.
That's what the Attorney General Michal Mukasey reiterated to a federal court Saturday, denying the NSA or its telecom partners engaged in"dragnet collection on the contents of millions of communications [...] for the purpose of analyzing those communication through key word searches to obtain information about possible terrorist attacks." (emphasis in original)
And since that did not happen, the dozens of suits filed against companies such as AT&T alleging such a thing should be dismissed, according to Mukasey, who was invoking the telecom immunity provisions passed by Congress in July.
That same bill legalized most of the spying program that was not a dragnet. It also oddly legalized dragnet surveillance of Americans' international communications.
So if there's no Big Brother ear listening for the perfectly wrong word, what was going on?
Well, one might look to the things Mukasey would not deny or perhaps, look closer at the language of the denial (.pdf). read more »
EFF Sues NSA, President Bush, and Vice President Cheney to Stop Illegal Surveillance-UPDATED - Via EFF.org Updates:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records. The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance.
The lawsuit, Jewel v. NSA, is aimed at ending the NSA's dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and holding accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it. Evidence in the case includes undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA. read more »
TELECONFERENCE TODAY at 1:30pm ET/10:30am PT: EFF Sues NSA, President Bush, and VP Cheney to Stop Illegal Surveillance - Via EFF.org Updates:
Toll-Free Dial-In for Reporters: 1-800-894-5910; title "EFF Call"
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will file a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records.
The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance. read more »
New Details of Official Dissent in Spying Scandal - Via EFF.org Updates:
A new book containing explosive details about the NSA's illegal spying program hits stores today. Barton Gellman's "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency," excerpted in the Washington Post in two parts (1 & 2), brings to light new information about the warrantless wiretapping scandal and the role played by the most powerful vice president in history. read more »
What illegal "things" was the government doing in 2001-2004? - Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald:
For the second consecutive day, The Washington Post has published an excerpt from reporter Barton Gellman's new book on the Cheney Vice Presidency, and it provides still more details on the intense confrontation in March, 2004 between the Bush Justice Department and the Cheney-led White House over the DOJ's refusal to certify the legality of the NSA's domestic spying activities. As has been known ever since Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified before the Senate in May, 2007, all of the top-level DOJ officials -- including Attorney General John Ashcroft, Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller -- told President Bush they would resign immediately because Bush ordered the NSA surveillance program to continue even after his own Justice Department told him it was patently illegal. Comey drafted his resignation letter, calling Bush's spying activities "an apocalyptic situation" because he had "been asked to be a part of something that is fundamentally wrong." read more »
U.N. agency eyes curbs on Internet anonymity - Via Politics and Law - CNET News :
A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.
The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.
The potential for eroding Internet users' right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law in the United States and recognized in international law by groups such as the Council of Europe, has alarmed some technologists and privacy advocates. Also affected may be services such as the Tor anonymizing network.
read more »Exclusive: Widespread cell phone location snooping by NSA? - Via Surveillance State - CNET News :
If you thought that the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping was limited to AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, think again.
While these household names of the telecom industry almost certainly helped the government to illegally snoop on their customers, statements by a number of legal experts suggest that collaboration with the NSA may run far deeper into the wireless phone industry. With over 3,000 wireless companies operating in the United States, the majority of industry-aided snooping likely occurs under the radar, with the dirty-work being handled by companies that most consumers have never heard of.
A recent article in the London Review of Books revealed that a number of private companies now sell off-the-shelf data-mining solutions to government spies interested in analyzing mobile-phone calling records and real-time location information. These companies include ThorpeGlen, VASTech, Kommlabs, and Aqsacom--all of which sell "passive probing" data-mining services to governments around the world. read more »
CIA, FBI push 'Facebook for spies' - Via CNN.com :
When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off.
A social-networking site for the world of spying officially launches for the U.S. intelligence community this month.
But that's not the case at the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staff members to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.
"It's every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it's much, much more," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.
The program is called A-Space, and it's a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. read more »
Gonzales Violated Security Rules with Spy Docs, Lied to Cover it Up - Via Threat Level:
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales repeatedly violated federal secrecy rules by mishandling documents containing "zealously protected" secrets about government's warrantless wiretapping program, then lied to investigators to cover up his actions, Justice Department investigators reported Tuesday.
Before his ouster in August, 2007, Gonzales was prone to storing an ultra-secret document about the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program in his briefcase at his home -- near, but not inside, a personal safe. And at his office, he stored at least 18 top secret documents about the NSA's wiretapping in a safe used by at least five employees not cleared to know about the program, according to a 29-page report (.pdf) from the department's Inspector General. read more »
Secret Spying Court Stays Secret, Rejects ACLU Plea Again - Via Threat Level:
For the third time in a year, a secret spying court rejected an ACLU request to let some sunshine pierce its dark curtains of secrecy, ruling late Thursday that national security prohibits publishing even unclassified versions of court documents or allowing non-government lawyers to argue in the court.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was reacting to an ACLU petition in July to be part of the court's review of new wiretapping powers handed to the Administration by Congress in July. Under the new law -- known as the FISC Amendments Act -- the nation's spies can order companies like AT&T and Google to help the government drop dragnets into domestic internet and phone facilities to capture all communications suspected to involve at least one foreigner. read more »
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