RSN: CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: Torture Happens in the US, Restoring The Gray Wolf

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Ken Klippenstein | CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: Torture Happens in the US

Ken Klippenstein, Reader Supported News
Klippenstein writes: "John Kiriakou exposed the Bush-era torture program and was subsequently sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison."
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'They Looked Like ISIS:' Masked Raid Led to Kidnapping at Chicago Black Site
Spencer Ackerman and Zach Stafford, The Guardian UK
Excerpt: "When the group of armed masked men burst into Eddie's Sandwiches in Chicago, John Vergara initially thought he had walked into a stickup. Their guns were drawn, and they told everyone at Eddie's that afternoon to put their hands on the counter."
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Trevor Timm | Violating Privacy Isn't Only Bad for China, Mr. President
Trevor Timm, The Guardian UK
Timm writes: "Want to know why forcing tech companies to build backdoors into encryption is a terrible idea? Look no further than President Obama's stark criticism of China's plan to do exactly that on Tuesday."
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Petraeus Plea Deal Reveals Two-Tier Justice System for Leaks
Peter Maass, The Intercept
Maass writes: "David Petraeus, the former Army general and CIA director, admitted today that he gave highly-classified journals to his onetime lover and that he lied to the FBI about it."
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In Northern Syria, is the US Running out of Rebel Allies?
Dominique Soguel, Christian Science Monitor
Soguel writes: "Gains by Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate, have forced two major US-backed rebel groups to disband at a time when Washington needs solid partners to counter the influence of jihadists in Syria."
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Jessica Valenti | May the 2016 Elections Be Full of Angry Women Politicians
Jessica Valenti, The Guardian UK
Valenti writes: "If there's one word that women in politics are accustomed to, it's 'angry.'"
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Center for Biological Diversity | Restoring The Gray Wolf
Center for Biological Diversity
Excerpt: "Few animals evoke the wild like wolves. Majestic, rangy and highly social, wolves play a crucial role in driving evolution and helping calibrate nature's complex relationships."
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We're All Suspects in Barack Obama's America

Interesting piece!

FOCUS: Robert Scheer | We're All Suspects in Barack Obama's America

Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Scheer writes: "Barack Obama's speech Friday on surveillance was his worst performance, not as a matter of theatrical skill, though he clearly did not embrace his lines, but in its stark betrayal of his oft proclaimed respect for constitutional safeguards and civil liberty."
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Movie Night: The Internet's Own Boy" - "Terms and Conditions May Apply"

AMAZING!

Tonight's the night! At 5pm EST today, we're hosting an online screening of "Terms and Conditions May Apply," a startling new documentary about the erosion of privacy rights in the digital age.

After the movie, stick around for an Internet townhall with the filmmaker and top privacy advocates, including the ACLU's Ben Wizner -- legal advisor to Edward Snowden.

Click here to RSVP and watch the trailer.

"Doors Open" at 4pm EST -- you can logon to demandprogress.tv starting then, and the screening is free for the first 3000 people.

Don't miss the previews. We're screening a new trailer of "The Internet's Own Boy," the Aaron Swartz documentary.

Click here to check out the site and RSVP.

This is the kind of thing we've been wanting to do for a long time -- to bring our community together online, have some fun, and have a frank conversation about how we, collectively, can most effectively fight back against the government/corporate heist of our private data.

Movies are most fun with friends: Click here to share on facebook. And here to tweet about the screening.

Thanks,

Demand Progress Team

'Follow the Money': NSA Spies on International Payments

Follow the Money': NSA Spies on International Payments

picture alliance / dpa

In 2011, the NSA possessed 180 million records through its "Follow the Money" branch.

The United States' NSA intelligence agency is interested in international payments processed by companies including Visa, SPIEGEL has learned. It has even set up its own financial database to track money flows through a "tailored access operations" division.

 

The National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions, according to documents seen by SPIEGEL.

 

The information from the American foreign intelligence agency, acquired by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, show that the spying is conducted by a branch called "Follow the Money" (FTM). The collected information then flows into the NSA's own financial databank, called "Tracfin," which in 2011 contained 180 million records. Some 84 percent of the data is from credit card transactions.

Further NSA documents from 2010 show that the NSA also targets the transactions of customers of large credit card companies like VISA for surveillance. NSA analysts at an internal conference that year described in detail how they had apparently successfully searched through the US company's complex transaction network for tapping possibilities.

Their aim was to gain access to transactions by VISA customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to one presentation. The goal was to "collect, parse and ingest transactional data for priority credit card associations, focusing on priority geographic regions." In response to a SPIEGEL inquiry, however, a VISA spokeswoman ruled out the possibility that data could be taken from company-run networks.

The NSA's Tracfin data bank also contained data from the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a network used by thousands of banks to send transaction information securely. SWIFT was named as a "target," according to the documents, which also show that the NSA spied on the organization on several levels, involving, among others, the agency's "tailored access operations" division. One of the ways the agency accessed the data included reading "SWIFT printer traffic from numerous banks," the documents show.

But even intelligence agency employees are somewhat concerned about spying on the world finance system, according to one document from the UK's intelligence agency GCHQ concerning the legal perspectives on "financial data" and the agency's own cooperations with the NSA in this area. The collection, storage and sharing of politically sensitive data is a deep invasion of privacy, and involved "bulk data" full of "rich personal information," much of which "is not about our targets," the document says.

SPIEGEL/kla

 

 

 

 

Asking the necessary questions about accountability, transparency, privacy

Great article!

Truthout's interview with Heidi Boghosian of the National Lawyers Guild is even more relevant in light of the Manning verdict, as she asks "will we, the people, elect to harness our collective power to curb a mass surveillance state that infringes on our privacy and our constitutional rights? Will we demand transparency and accountability from government agencies?"

 

 

 

http://truth-out.org/news/item/18292-from-spying-on-terrorists-abroad-to-using-massive-surveillance-to-suppress-domestic-dissent-when-we-become-the-hunted