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[Name removed]

[Pholus]

1. The sunlight is getting in.... nt

[MotherPetrie]

2. k&r Incredibly valuable post.

[Catherina]

3. Rec'd and bookmarked. Thank you! n/t

[Kolesar]

30. Bookmark this thread as an index of bored snowbots

Don't you guys have anything to do this Saturday?

[Lint Head]

4. Welcome to DU. When you think about it, federal funding of military research created the internet.

Who's to say there wasn't surveillance built into technology all along. Maybe that was the plan. Once something as big as satellite communication, wireless phones, the internet and other systems that were the result of federal government funding were released to the public to exploit, why not make sure there is a unlocking feature to the code or system to enable spying. Then all that is needed are laws and regulations that allow the unlocking. This is bigger than the public is allowed to understand.

[ProSense]

5. OMG, this is too friggin long!

If you need to use that many words to make your point, then something is wrong.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023217632



"13. William Binney from 2012 on Stellar Wind, NSA and the dangers of a Mass Surveillance "Stasi" state "

Shorter and to the point:

NSA veteran: "So he is transitioning from whistle-blower to a traitor."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023035550

Another misleading media report implies that warrantless wiretapping is legal.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023026724

Remember whistleblower Thomas Tamm?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023032225

Bush and Cheney were liars, and there is an effort to create the impression Obama is no different
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023043154

[AnotherMcIntosh]

18. Yes. If it's too long, break it up into separate posts and provide links to your own posts.

Is this a great idea or what?

Why don't more people do this?

[Jackpine Radical]

27. And then I suppose you could just keep on re-posting the same stuff

in response to any thread that seems vaguely related.

I think if I posted a Snowden/NSA/surveillance thread & didn't get one of these, I would conclude that I had done something wrong.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

28. That would do it.

I wonder whether anyone actually clicks on the links?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=3302887

[KoKo]

6. Excellent reference material... Thanks!

Bookmarked.

[woo me with science]

7. K&R Thank you.

[snot]

8. K&R'd & bookmarked.

[MannyGoldstein]

9. Excellent, Excellent, Excellent

Telling it as it is.

[Progressive dog]

10. I always know how important a post is

by how long it is and by the use of the words existential or dystopian.

[ProSense]

11. Bullshit claim:

10. Obama is lying when he says they are not collecting the CONTENTS of phone calls

Tim Clemente ex-FBI on CNN recently &quot The NSA) can listen to ANY phone call AFTER the event"

The President is "lying" because some guy went on CNN and made a claim.

This is one of those claims Greenwald can't prove because he has no evidence.

On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could:

BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?

CLEMENTE: "No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.

BURNETT: "So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.

CLEMENTE: "No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not."

"All of that stuff" - meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant - "is being captured as we speak".

On Thursday night, Clemente again appeared on CNN, this time with host Carol Costello, and she asked him about those remarks. He reiterated what he said the night before but added expressly that "all digital communications in the past" are recorded and stored:

- more -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/04/telephone-calls-recorded-fbi-boston

Here's How the NSA Decides Who It Can Spy On
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023060180

Also the FBI is not the NSA. Each agency is subject to different laws.

<...>

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente said that the FBI could listen to phone calls between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife. "Welcome to America," he said. "All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not."

The next day, Clemente returned to CNN, saying that "there's a way to look at digital communications in the past" and that "no digital communication is secure." Clemente specified that this type of surveillance can't be used in a criminal investigation but is used in "major terrorism investigations or counterintelligence investigations."

<...>

In an email to the Huffington Post, Christopher M. Allen from FBI Office of Public Affairs said that while he would not comment on Clemente's remarks, he did provide us with a link to congressional testimony from the bureau's former general counsel from 2011. "I can verify that the information from the testimony remains accurate," Allen said.

The testimony refers to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) of 1994. According to FBI counsel Valerie Caproni, the law "requires 'telecommunications carriers' to develop and deploy intercept solutions in their networks to ensure that the government is able to intercept electronic communications when lawfully authorized."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/tim-clemente-fbi_n_3229478.html

5 New Revelations About NSA Surveillance

—By Dana Liebelson

1) Surveillance Has Contributed to Thwarting More Than 50 Terror Plots Since 9/11

<...>

2) The NSA Doesn't Need Court Approval Each Time it Searches Americans' Phone Records

NSA Deputy Director John Inglis said that 22 NSA officials are authorized to approve requests to query an agency database that contains the cellphone metadata of American citizens. (Metadata includes the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls, the date and time the calls took place, and their duration.) Deputy AG Cole also said that all queries of this database must be documented and can be subject to audits. Cole also said that the the NSA does not have to get separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) approval for each query; instead, the agency merely has to file a monthly report with the court on how many times the database was queried, and how many of those searches targeted the phone records of Americans.

3) 10 NSA Officials Have Permission to Give Information About US Citizens to the FBI

There are 10 NSA officials—including Inglis and Alexander—involved in determining whether information collected about US citizens can be provided to the FBI. It can only be shared if there's independent evidence that the target has connections to a terrorist organization. Inglis said that if the information is found to be irrelevant, it must be destroyed. If the NSA mistakenly targets an American citizen, it must report this to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

4) Other Countries are Less Transparent Than the US, Officials Say

Cole said that the FISA Amendments Act provides more due process than is afforded to citizens of European countries, including Germany, the U.K., and France. Alexander added that "virtually all" countries have laws that compel telecommunications firms to turn over information on suspects.

5) Fewer Than 300 Phone Numbers Were Targeted in 2012

NSA officials say that even though the agency has access to Americans' phone records, it investigated fewer than 300 phone numbers connected to US citizens in 2012. The officials did not provide any detail on the number of email addresses targeted.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/5-new-revelations-nsa-top-secret-surveillance-programs

Excerpt: Obama talks NSA in Charlie Rose interview.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023039098

[ConservativeDemocrat]

16. It's also chalk full of bullshit arguments as well

The NSA's Mass Surveillance programs are extremely ineffective at stopping terrorist plots - see Boston.

This is like saying because there is one murder then we shouldn't have police investigating murders.

The truth of the matter is that our counter-terrorism efforts have been extremely effective. The death rate of terrorism on United States territory has been hovering around an average of about 3 deaths per year. The President directly said that NSA surveillance has aided the disruption of over fifty terrorist plots. There are about 50 deaths per year in the U.S. from lightning strikes.

Funny enough, the opposite argument is much better. People who hate the NSA could say that we've largely become extremely effective at stopping terrorism, so no more money need be spent in that area.

However, making such an argument would require casting the President in a good light, so it's clearly unacceptable to the Democratic-haters who dominate this board.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[AnotherMcIntosh]

19. To borrow from what you said at #5, "OMG, this is too friggin long!" Well said.

[truebluegreen]

12. Bookmarking. Thank you.

[DirkGently]

13. Bingo. Far too big & too broad to be about "terrorists."

What's great about "terrorism" as the authoritarians' new bogeyman is that it's so ludicrously vague. It's not a group, it's not a country, it's not a person. At this point, it's just used as a catchall for a conveniently never ending cast of "bad guys." Convenient especially when coupled with the idea that even who or where or what the "bad guys" are must be kept SECRET.

It's especially perverse to ask people to make endless sacrifices to perpetuate the imaginary "war" on the "bad guys." Endless spending, used to excuse eviscerating any use of our resources to build infrastructure or heal the sick or any other purpose.

Endless surrender of privacy and security, from bare feet at the airport to the extreme of actually contemplating the execution of Americans on foreign soil without the slightest showing of guilt. And their kids, for god's sake.

All wrapped up in the even more pernicious notion that none of it can "work" if we actually know what's happening. Just sit back, citizen, and surrender your money and your safety and any shred of what you used to think of as a "right to privacy," or the magic Pterodactyl Spray will stop working, and something will blow up.

And yet what do we have to show for it? A dubious collection of the feckless painstakingly drawn into impossible plots by the FBI, then snatched and held up as evidence of what supposedly might have happened, if instead of the authorities providing fake plans and fake weapons, someone else had stumbled on the same people with real plans and real weapons? Endless self-serving "leaks" about the dozens -- or is thousands now -- of supposed "plots" foiled by massive surveillance on Americans?

No. No one really thinks that. This is not what security looks like. This is what creeping, profit-driven, corporate controlled authoritarianism looks like. It couldn't be more blatant or more obvious, and yet most are willing to ignore it, and sad few are willing to defend it.

[byeya]

14. Read most of it & will read it all later - thanks & congrats

[indepat]

15. Big brother will not tolerate any impertinence exposing his suppression of liberty or any vestige of

dissent.

[Fuddnik]

17. Kick and Rec!

I regret that I have but one Rec to give to this thread.

Bookmarked.

[xiamiam]

20. kick..thanks for putting this together..nt

[AnotherMcIntosh]

21. K&R. But are you familiar with Ernest Hemingway?

[JaneyVee]

22. We also have domestic non Islamic terrorism. AKA rightwing terrorism:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/terror-from-the-right

[TheKentuckian]

23. Bump

[matthews]

24. Bookmarked for future uses and reference.

Thank you for the handy dandy thread that oh-so-clearly lays this NSA spying crap and it's purpose and the unconstitutional fraud be run on the people purely for the benefit of the 1%.

John Poindexter must wake up every morning with a smile on his face a mile wide.

[99th_Monkey]

25. Thanks for putting all this info together. Long? yes. But also very helpful. K&R eom

[NoOneMan]

26. Needs increased blue linky to content ratio

[Life Long Dem]

29. The NSA doesn't only cover terrorism.

They also cover cyberwarfare.

Cyberwarfare

Cyberwarfare refers to politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage and espionage. It is a form of information warfare sometimes seen as analogous to conventional warfare,[1] and in 2013 was, for the first time, considered a larger threat than Al Qaeda or terrorism, by many U.S. intelligence officials.[2]

U.S. government security expert Richard A. Clarke, in his book Cyber War (May 2010), defines "cyberwarfare" as "actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation's computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption."[3]:6 The Economist describes cyberspace as "the fifth domain of warfare,"[4] and William J. Lynn, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, states that "as a doctrinal matter, the Pentagon has formally recognized cyberspace as a new domain in warfare . . . [which] has become just as critical to military operations as land, sea, air, and space.

In 2009, President Barack Obama declared America's digital infrastructure to be a "strategic national asset," and in May 2010 the Pentagon set up its new U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), headed by General Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency (NSA), to defend American military networks and attack other countries' systems. The EU has set up ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) which is headed by Prof. Udo Helmbrecht and there are now further plans to significantly expand ENISA's capabilities. The United Kingdom has also set up a cyber-security and "operations centre" based in Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent of the NSA. In the U.S. however, Cyber Command is only set up to protect the military, whereas the government and corporate infrastructures are primarily the responsibility respectively of the Department of Homeland Security and private companies.[4]

In February 2010, top American lawmakers warned that the "threat of a crippling attack on telecommunications and computer networks was sharply on the rise."[6] According to The Lipman Report, numerous key sectors of the U.S. economy along with that of other nations, are currently at risk, including cyber threats to public and private facilities, banking and finance, transportation, manufacturing, medical, education and government, all of which are now dependent on computers for daily operations.[6] In 2009, President Obama stated that "cyber intruders have probed our electrical grids."[7]

More... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare

[Katashi_itto]

31. K & R

[Enthusiast]

32. Kicked and Recommended!

"the government is LYING to you on a GRAND SCALE"

This lying is only a portion of the greatest propaganda effort in the history of mankind. And this lying includes falsehoods about events leading up to 911. Of course we are not even allowed to discuss this in the light of day.

[avaistheone1]

33. A great deal of mind blowing information here.

Superb work!

k&r