Spy Program Began Under Bush/Cheney, Patriot Act

More details will emerge over time, along with the opinions of many.

Sad to watch the revelations of what many suspected.



Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations --Snowden is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA. 09 Jun 2013 The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell. The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I do not expect to see home again' --Source for the Guardian's NSA files on why he carried out the biggest intelligence leak in a generation – and what comes next 09 Jun 2013 Edward Snowden was interviewed over several days in Hong Kong by Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill. Q: Why did you decide to become a whistleblower? A: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards. "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under." ...Q: When did you decide to leak the documents? A: "You see things that may be disturbing. When you see everything you realise that some of these things are abusive.... A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama's promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor."

Edward Snowden was NSA Prism leak source - Guardian 09 Jun 2013 A former CIA technical worker has been identified by the UK's Guardian newspaper as the source of leaks about US surveillance programmes. Edward Snowden, 29, is described by the paper as an ex-CIA technical assistant, currently employed by defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. The Guardian said his identity was being revealed at his own request. The recent revelations are that US agencies gathered millions of phone records and monitored internet data.

 

Verizon Top Secret FISC Order 08 Jun 2013 Verizon Top Secret FISC Order (.pdf) TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN Derived from: Pleadings in the above-captioned docket Declassify on: 12 April 2038 This Court having found that the Application of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for an Order requiring the production of tangible things from Verizon Business Network Services, Inc. on behalf of MCI Communication Services Inc., d/b/a Verizon Business Services (individually and collectively "Verizon") satisfies the requirements of 50 U.S.C. § 1861, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, the Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency (NSA) upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this Order, unless otherwise ordered by the Court, an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail records or "telephony metadata" created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.

New NSA tool to quantify, track intelligence collection revealed – live 08 Jun 2013 Over the last week, three main prongs of top secret government intelligence activity have come to light. These are the dragnet collection and storage of Americans' phone records; the exploitation of data from the world's largest Internet companies with their apparent co-operation; and the casing of potential targets overseas for pre-emptive cyber-attacks.

 

UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation --UK security agency GCHQ gaining information from world's biggest internet firms through US-run Prism programme 07 Jun 2013 The UK's electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world's biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America's top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal. The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year. The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK.

U.S. spy agency seeks criminal probe into leaks 08 Jun 2013 A U.S. intelligence agency requested a criminal probe on Saturday into the leak of highly classified information about secret surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency, a spokesman for the intelligence chief's office said. Confirmation that the NSA filed a "crimes report" came a few hours after the nation's spy chief, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, launched an aggressive defense of a secret government data collection program. Clapper blasted what he called "reckless disclosures" of a highly classified spy agency project code-named PRISM.

Sources: NSA sucks in data from 50 companies 06 Jun 2013 Analysts at the National Security Agency can now secretly access real-time user data provided by as many as 50 American companies, ranging from credit rating agencies to internet service providers, two government officials familiar with the arrangements said. Several of the companies have provided records continuously since 2006, while others have given the agency sporadic access, these officials said. These officials disclosed the number of participating companies in order to provide context for a series of disclosures about the NSA's domestic collection policies.

June 7, 2013

Can Justice Sotomayor Stop the N.S.A.?

Posted by Lynn Oberlander

The Verizon Business customers who learned, this week, that the company had given records of every call they made within and from the United States to the National Security Agency might also have been surprised to find out that, under current law, the government did not need a warrant (or probable cause) to access that information. The records are not considered private, and all the government needed was an order from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court. That might sound like a safeguard against government overreach, but the court approved all but one of the five thousand one hundred and eighty applications submitted for surveillance and physical searches between 2010 and 2012. It is hardly what you would call a watchdog.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/06/can-justice-sotomayor-stop-the-nsa.html