NSA monitoring all Verizon users

[metalman]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

Uh, no.
Wrong. Completely, utterly, and stupidly wrong.

u seem like a clever dude. got any friends?

[santafe2]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

Uh, no.

Stanford was created as a giant tax boondoggle by Leland Stanford - a way to keep tax free a large chunk of land he managed to wiggle out from railroad related land grants.

I don't think you have a c1ue about Stanford. That was just a sleepy little backwater of academia until they learned how to tap into the military industrial complex.

[reggie]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

I don't think you have a c1ue about Stanford. That was just a sleepy little backwater of academia until they learned how to tap into the military industrial complex.

Yup, Steve Blank (Berkeley prof) gives a pretty good historical overview in this GoogleTechTalk (I also think Blank wrote a book on the matter).

[Slimprofits]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

4) Basketball? It was a Canadian, James Naismith, who is credited with inventing the game of basketball. We gave it away to you folks 'cus it was cutting into our hockey time. A guy's gotta set some priorities ya know. And besides, it's a sissy, dribble-ball type of game.

The idea never occurred to him until he set foot in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Go Bruins!

[lektrode]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

The idea never occurred to him until he set foot in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Go Bruins!

+1
yessir - in good ole springfield

[c1ue]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

u seem like a clever dude. got any friends?

Yes, quite a few actually.

I don't think you have a c1ue about Stanford. That was just a sleepy little backwater of academia until they learned how to tap into the military industrial complex.

Right, Stanford - that sleepy little backwater. The one which Herbert Hoover graduated from as an engineer - you know, the ex-President?

The same sleepy backwater that also hosted Linus Pauling and Arthur Kornberg, Nobel laureates in Chemistry and Medicine.

If you want to say that Stanford turbocharged with the advent of Silicon Valley, I'd happily agree with that.

But to say Stanford was a non-entity prior to this, is ridiculous.

[Jam]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

This is precious
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...rong-hong-kong

US got NSA leaker Edward Snowden's middle name wrong, says Hong Kong
Justice secretary explains why White House's request for arrest of whistleblower was turned down

Hong Kong's justice minister has said the US government got the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden's middle name wrong in documents it submitted seeking his arrest.
Snowden, who hid in Hong Kong for several weeks after revealing secret US surveillance programmes, was allowed to fly to Moscow on Sunday despite a US request for his arrest. Hong Kong said at the time that the paperwork had not fully complied with its requirements.
Hong Kong's justice secretary, Rimsky Yuen, explained on Tuesday that there had been discrepancies in the documentation filed by US authorities.

He said Hong Kong immigration records listed Snowden's middle name as Joseph, but the US government used the name James in some documents.

Yuen said US authorities had also not provided his passport number.

The decision to let Snowden leave angered the White House, which said it damaged US-Chinese relations.

[vt]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

Local police are an NSA in their own jurisdictions:

http://cironline.org/reports/license-plate-readers-let-police-collect-millions-records-drivers-4883

[vt]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...cc5_story.html

[vt]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

"The agency is drowning in useless data, which harms its ability to conduct legitimate surveillance, claims Mr. Binney, who rose to the civilian equivalent of a general during more than 30 years at the NSA before retiring in 2001. Analysts are swamped with so much information that they can't do their jobs effectively, and the enormous stockpile is an irresistible temptation for misuse."

Just as I thought; the paralysis of analysis:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...0?KEYWORDS=nsa

[Thailandnotes]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

And what a big waste of money...

"The revelations indicate that the NSA paid $10 million to RSA, one of the most prominent encrytion software companies in the world, to include the NSA’s own encryption formula in a very popular and heavily used encryption product called “Bsafe”. While Bsafe offers several encryption options, the default option (the one you use if you don’t specifically choose any) is the NSA’s own code."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/...-private-data/

[don]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

Americans Are as Likely to Be Killed by Their Own Furniture as by Terrorism




The deadly threat of furniture surely justifies extending round-the-clock surveillance of US citizens into homes and bathrooms.

Death By Television - so American

[vt]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

TAO- NSA's Top Hacking Unit

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...12-29-13-01-13

[Slimprofits]

Re: NSA monitoring all Verizon users

google alternative? http://donttrack.us/ https://duckduckgo.com/

[don]

Meanwhile back in the Friendly Skies

FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities




The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the US carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology – all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, the Associated Press has learned.

The planes’ surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge’s approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country, an AP review found.

Aerial surveillance represents a changing frontier for law enforcement, providing what the government maintains is an important tool in criminal, terrorism or intelligence probes. But the program raises questions about whether there should be updated policies protecting civil liberties as new technologies pose intrusive opportunities for government spying.

The FBI confirmed for the first time the wide-scale use of the aircraft, which the AP traced to at least 13 fake companies, such as FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services. Even basic aspects of the program are withheld from the public in censored versions of official reports from the Justice Department’s inspector general.

“The FBI’s aviation program is not secret,” spokesman Christopher Allen said in a statement. “Specific aircraft and their capabilities are protected for operational security purposes.” Allen added that the FBI’s planes “are not equipped, designed or used for bulk collection activities or mass surveillance”.

But the planes can capture video of unrelated criminal activity on the ground that could be handed over for prosecutions.

Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they’re not making a call or in public. Officials said that practice, which mimics cell towers into coughing up basic subscriber information, is rare.

Details confirmed by the FBI track closely with published reports since at least 2003 that a government surveillance program might be behind suspicious-looking planes slowly circling neighborhoods. The AP traced at least 50 aircraft back to the FBI, and identified more than 100 flights since late April orbiting both major cities and rural areas.

One of the planes, photographed in flight last week by the AP in northern Virginia, bristled with unusual antennas under its fuselage and a camera on its left side. A federal budget document from 2010 mentioned at least 115 planes, including 90 Cessna aircraft, in the FBI’s surveillance fleet.

The FBI said it also occasionally helps local police with aerial support, such as during the recent disturbance in Baltimore that followed the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who sustained grievous injuries while in police custody. Those types of requests are reviewed by senior FBI officials.

The surveillance flights comply with agency rules, an FBI spokesman said. Those rules, which are heavily redacted in publicly available documents, limit the types of equipment the agency can use, as well as the justifications and duration of the surveillance.

Details about the flights come as the Justice Department seeks to navigate privacy concerns arising from aerial surveillance by unmanned aircrafts, or drones. Barack Obama has said he welcomes a debate on government surveillance, and has called for more transparency about spying in the wake of disclosures about classified programs.

“These are not your grandparents’ surveillance aircraft,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, calling the flights significant “if the federal government is maintaining a fleet of aircraft whose purpose is to circle over American cities, especially with the technology we know can be attached to those aircraft.”

During the past few weeks, the AP tracked planes from the FBI’s fleet on more than 100 flights over at least 11 states plus Washington DC, most with Cessna 182T Skylane aircraft. These included parts of Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and southern California.

Evolving technology can record higher-quality video from long distances, even at night, and can capture certain identifying information from cellphones using a device known as a “cell-site simulator” – or Stingray, to use one of the product’s brand names. These can trick pinpointed cellphones into revealing identification numbers of subscribers, including those not suspected of a crime.

Officials say cellphone surveillance is rare, although the AP found in recent weeks FBI flights orbiting large, enclosed buildings for extended periods where aerial photography would be less effective than electronic signals collection. Those included above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

After the Washington Post revealed flights by two planes circling over Baltimore in early May, the AP began analyzing detailed flight data and aircraft-ownership registrations that shared similar addresses and flight patterns. That review found some FBI missions circled above at least 40,000 residents during a single flight over Anaheim, California, in late May, according to census data and records provided by the website FlightRadar24.com.

Most flight patterns occurred in counter-clockwise orbits up to several miles wide and roughly one mile above the ground at slow speeds. A 2003 newsletter from the company FLIR Systems Inc, which makes camera technology such as seen on the planes, described flying slowly in left-handed patterns.

“Aircraft surveillance has become an indispensable intelligence collection and investigative technique which serves as a force multiplier to the ground teams,” the FBI said in 2009 when it asked Congress for $5.1m for the program.

Recently, independent journalists and websites have cited companies traced to a bank of Virginia post office boxes, including one shared with the Justice Department. The AP analyzed similar data since early May, while also drawing upon aircraft registration documents, business records and interviews with US officials to understand the scope of the operations.

The FBI asked the AP not to disclose the names of the fake companies it uncovered, saying that would saddle taxpayers with the expense of creating new cover companies to shield the government’s involvement, and could endanger the planes and integrity of the surveillance missions. The AP declined the FBI’s request because the companies’ names – as well as common addresses linked to the Justice Department – are listed on public documents and in government databases.

At least 13 front companies that AP identified being actively used by the FBI are registered to post office boxes in Bristow, Virginia, which is near a regional airport used for private and charter flights. Only one of them appears in state business records.

Included on most aircraft registrations is a mysterious name, Robert Lindley. He is listed as chief executive and has at least three distinct signatures among the companies. Two documents include a signature for Robert Taylor, which is strikingly similar to one of Lindley’s three handwriting patterns.

The FBI would not say whether Lindley is a US government employee. The AP unsuccessfully tried to reach Lindley at phone numbers registered to people of the same name in the Washington area since Monday.

Law enforcement officials said Justice Department lawyers approved the decision to create fictitious companies to protect the flights’ operational security and the Federal Aviation Administration was aware of the practice. One of the Lindley-headed companies shares a post office box openly used by the Justice Department.
Such elusive practices have endured for decades. A 1990 report by the then General Accounting Office noted that, in July 1988, the FBI had moved its “headquarters-operated” aircraft into a company that wasn’t publicly linked to the bureau.

The FBI does not generally obtain warrants to record video from its planes of people moving outside in the open, but it also said that under a new policy it has recently begun obtaining court orders to use cell-site simulators. The Obama administration had until recently been directing local authorities through secret agreements not to reveal their own use of the devices, even encouraging prosecutors to drop cases rather than disclose the technology’s use in open court.

A Justice Department memo last month also expressly barred its component law enforcement agencies from using unmanned drones “solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment” and said they are to be used only in connection with authorized investigations and activities. A department spokeswoman said the policy applied only to unmanned aircraft systems rather than piloted airplanes. The first amendment of the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and assembly.

as we know, freedom has a price and part of that price is security . . . .


US airport screenings fail to detect mock weapons in 95% of tests

In one test it was reported that TSA screeners failed to find a fake explosive device taped to an undercover agent's back when they patted him down


The US homeland security secretary, Jeh Johnson, has ordered improved security at airports and reassigned the top Transportation Security Administration official to another role after reports that screenings failed to detect mock explosives and weapons in 95% of tests carried out by undercover agents.

Airport screeners, who are employed by the Transportation Security Administration, did not detect banned weapons in 67 of 70 tests at dozens of airports, ABC News reported, citing officials briefed on a report by homeland security’s inspector general.

Johnson, whose department oversees the TSA, was briefed last week on the trials, which were completed recently.

In one test it was reported that an undercover agent was stopped when he set off an alarm at a checkpoint but that TSA screeners then failed to find a fake explosive device taped to his back when they patted him down.

Johnson said the results of the security checks were classified but he had directed the TSA to revise screening procedures “to address specific vulnerabilities identified” in the undercover operation. He also ordered that all TSA officers and supervisors across the country be trained and that airports’ screening equipment be tested.

Johnson said there would be more random covert tests.

“The numbers in these reports never look good out of context but they are a critical element in the continual evolution of our aviation security,” he said.
“We take these findings very seriously in our continued effort to test, measure and enhance our capabilities and techniques as threats evolve.”

Johnson said in a statement that Melvin Carraway, acting administrator of the TSA, was being reassigned to another section of homeland security. The TSA acting deputy director, Mark Hatfield, would lead the agency until a replacement was appointed.

Johnson noted that President Barack Obama had nominated coast guard Vice Admiral Pete Neffenger to be the next TSA administrator and urged the US Senate to confirm his nomination as quickly as possible.