Meet the upcoming "Conflict Records Research Center" dedicated to data and metadata analysis. [View all]
Indefinite Surveillance: Say Hello to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 http://truth-out.org/news/item/17070-indefinite-surveillance-say-hello-to-the-national-defense-authorization-act-of-2014
NDAA 2014 builds on the powers granted by both the Patriot Act and FISA by allowing unrestricted analysis and research of captured records pertaining to any organization or individual “now or once hostile to the United States”. Under the Patriot Act, the ability to obtain “any tangible thing” eliminated any expectation of privacy. Under NDAA 2014 Sec. 1061(g)(1), an overly vague definition of captured records enhances government power and guarantees indefinite surveillance.
On May 22, 2013 the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities, one of several Armed Services Committees, met to discuss the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2014. The main subject of the hearing was Sec. 1061, otherwise known as Enhancement of Capacity of the United States Government to Analyze Captured Records. This enhancement provision of NDAA 2014 would effectively create a new intelligence agency, one with the authority to analyze information gained under the Patriot Act, FISA, and known spying programs such as PRISM.
Sec. 1061(a) authorizes the Secretary of Defense to "establish a center to be known as the 'Conflict Records Research Center'" (Center). The main purpose of the center, according to the bill text, is to create a "digital research database," one with the capability to "translate" and facilitate research on "records captured from countries, organizations and individuals, now or once hostile to the United States." The authorization also says the Center will conduct research and analysis to "increase the understanding of factors related to international relations, counterterrorism and conventional and unconventional warfare, and ultimately, enhance national security."
In order to make the Center run, and to accomplish such an incredibly broad scope of "research," the Secretary of Defense needs the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to cooperate in coordinating "information exchanges important to the leadership of the United States Government." That coordination would require participation of all 16 member agencies and departments of the U.S. Intelligence Community. This would leave James Clapper, the man accused of lying to Congress about the National Security Agency's (NSA) domestic spying program known as PRISM, in de facto direction of another federal surveillance and data analysis agency. And while the Center would be officially directed and overseen by the Secretary of Defense, without unfettered access to secret and top secret information, the Center would become completely ineffective. These information exchanges would most likely include data and records generated by the mass surveillance of everyday people under PRISM, as well as surveillance of those identified as "potential terrorists" or " high value targets" by any one of those 16 intelligence agencies now in operation.
(More at the link.)
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