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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGEORGE W. OBAMA
REPORTS: U.S. Mining Data From 9 Major Tech Firms... MICROSOFT, YAHOO, FACEBOOK, APPLE, GOOGLE, SKYPE, AOL, YOUTUBE... REPORT: AT&T, Sprint Also Handing Over Phone Data... Credit Card Providers, Too!
America, here's hoping you've had enough time to be come to terms with the National Security Agency scooping up all of your metadata pertaining to all of the phone calls you've been making with Verizon, because here comes the next fun news about the government's far-reaching panopticon of total information surveillance, courtesy of Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras of The Washington Post:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a persons movements and contacts over time.
The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.
The Washington Post obtained "briefing slides" from an "internal presentation on the Silicon Valley operation, intended for senior analysts in the NSAs Signals Intelligence Directorate," from a "career intelligence officer" who cited "firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities," as the reason for the disclosure. These materials described PRISM as "the most prolific contributor to the President's Daily Brief" and the NSA's "leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports." The Post, goes on to report that while PRISM allows the NSA to collect "anything it likes" from the available data, it is in practice not utilized as a "dragnet" per se:
Analysts who use the system from a Web portal at Fort Meade key in selectors, or search terms, that are designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a targets foreignness. That is not a very stringent test. Training materials obtained by the Post instruct new analysts to submit accidentally collected U.S. content for a quarterly report, but its nothing to worry about.
One may nevertheless worry about this thing that is "nothing to worry about."
Gellman and Poitras include a detailed history of the PRISM program, along with an explanation of how the system works and the extent to which the technology companies involved offer "resistance" to the data mining, so go read the whole thing.
MORE if you can handle it...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/nsa-prism-data-mining_n_3399310.html
spanone
(135,920 posts)Purveyor
(29,876 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)uponit7771
(90,370 posts)...used it in 2008
That would be a lot more interesting than the NSA crap
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Celldweller
(186 posts)Purveyor
(29,876 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your Jury Service
At Thu Jun 6, 2013, 09:55 PM an alert was sent on the following post:
GEORGE W. OBAMA
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022961453
REASON FOR ALERT:
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)
ALERTER'S COMMENTS:
You know what? I agree that the phone records stuff is crap. But so are posts like this. This IS Democratic Underground and while criticizing the president is fine, this goes beyond that and I do hope DU community standards are higher than this. Please hide it. Keep criticizing but bashing like this is too much. Thank you.
You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Thu Jun 6, 2013, 09:57 PM, and the Jury voted 1-5 to LEAVE IT.
Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT and said: Free Republic is thataway.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: This really doesn't violate community standards. Unfortunately, it's true. You may not like it, but I'd hate to be a part of something where we all blindly followed whoever the head Dem was. That's just not me. I suggest you hide the thread yourself.
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: we need to argue this out. I say leave it alone.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: (gives alerter a swirlie)
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)their bearings trying to spin this one, indeed.
roamer65
(36,748 posts)I agree.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)I was juror number 2...
When did we become the sheeple?
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)on this.
He could have shut this down and he didn't.
Celldweller
(186 posts)tridim
(45,358 posts)NoPasaran
(17,291 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)LWolf
(46,179 posts)I've never been a fan of Barack Obama. I've never had any confidence in his presidency. That's because I listened carefully past the vague, "inspiring" rhetoric to what he really supported, and I knew he wouldn't represent me.
I have never, not even now, though, equated him with GWB.