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+--- Thread: Panopticon of global surveillance (/thread-11030.html)
Panopticon of global surveillance - Peter Lemkin - 05-01-2014
U.S. court allows more phone snooping
WASHINGTON Fri Jan 3, 2014 9:05pm EST
Credit: Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch
(Reuters) - The secretive U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Friday renewed the authority of U.S. intelligence agencies to collect data on millions of Americans' telephone calls in a program that has set off a legal battle over privacy rights.
The court allowed the intelligence community to collect metadata from phone companies, the Office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a news release.
The release offered almost no details about the ruling, but a U.S. official said the authority was renewed for three months, and that it applied to the entire metadata collection program.
In the past, these orders were sometimes issued to individual telephone companies. But the official said the latest order covered all companies from which metadata had been collected under recent previous court authorizations.
News the National Security Agency can track the telephone calls of Americans by collecting metadata of who they contact and when, was one of the main revelations by former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden last year that set off public outcry about government spying.
Two U.S. district judges recently issued conflicting rulings on the legality and constitutionality of bulk metadata collection by the NSA.
On Friday, the Justice Department filed notice it was appealing a ruling in December by Washington-based federal judge Richard Leon that declared bulk metadata collection was probably unlawful. Leon said that he could not imagine a more "indiscriminate" and "arbitrary" invasion of privacy.
But William Pauley, a federal judge based in Manhattan, issued a ruling last month that found such collection legal.
Clapper's office said that U.S. intelligence agencies were "open to modifications" to the metadata collection program that "would provide additional privacy and civil liberty protections while still maintaining its operational benefits."
The NSA says it only uses the metadata of Americans in limited circumstances and with great care.
A panel of outside experts appointed by President Barack Obama recently questioned whether the results produced by bulk metadata collection outweighed the intrusion into Americans' privacy. It suggested possible changes in the program, but not its cancellation.
Obama is expected to produce his own recommendations for reforms or changes in U.S. electronic surveillance later this month. ::bowtie::
Panopticon of global surveillance - Peter Lemkin - 05-01-2014
Did Edward Snowden Ruin Google Glass?
By Alec Liu
![[Image: TFwmVLLYoaGiIIHC00reDuRnfCQKSEjF3BZui0MT...Rmxjw=s630]](http://lh3.ggpht.com/TFwmVLLYoaGiIIHC00reDuRnfCQKSEjF3BZui0MTXkvWBccah1Y6ByCRsgbKTbFBBqD-iCccwx_DLeNCNAUgjZYYPRPX-J84qRmxjw=s630)
Google Glass makes us uncomfortable. Via Flickr/Lingeswaran Marimuthukumar
Now that the Google Glass guinea pigs have had eight months to try out the biggest thing in wearable tech, the product's short term prospects aren't looking good and part of the reason is the NSA. Beyond costing tech companies untold billions, the fear of government surveillance is problematic for wearable tech. Privacy concerns make Glass socially awkward, according to long-time users.Google unveiled its futuristic accessory to a wave of good press, aided by some smart marketing material, at a time when smartphone upgrades were starting to lose some luster and excitement. What was next? A smart TV? A digital watch?
The stars were aligned. Computerized spectacles intuitively made sense: ever-present, as to address our need to be constantly available and ready to share every possible moment, but out of the way enough so that we could carry on with business as usual. The stuff of sci-fi fantasies, we felt like the future had finally arrived. Plus, this was Google.
So when the first prototypes became available to the public on April 14th, there was an understandable amount of buzz. Google Glass was cool, even if it may have been kind of douchey to some. Being accepted to the Explorers program, which cost a hefty $1,500, felt like being invited to a hip party, a badge of honor that earned "mad Likes" on Facebook. Glass's success appeared all but certain.
Two months later, Edward Snowden would turn the world upside down with his now infamous NSA leaks. No longer the subject of tin foil hat conspiracy theorists, government surveillance entered mainstream consciousness. Every American tech firm was implicated, including Google. Privacy concerns always existed, but they were limited to media critics, as they usually are, and arguably overblown. Overnight, it was on everyone's mind.
At the very least, we were creeped out. Some of my more ambitious (or paranoid) friends started using PGP encryption. My sister put masking tape over her webcam. Suddenly, Google Glass wasn't just a way to seamlessly share on-the-trot, livestream invasive surgeries, and make first-person porn, it became yet another conduit for NSA spying. Now it was kind of awkward.
Google Glass will only be successful if we think it's sexy, which the company is acutely aware of. Like all information networks, its utility is directly correlated with how many people use it. Granted, first-mover status will predictably face the initial backlash from the egalitarian-minded, which Wired's Mat Honan acknowledges, after sporting Glass for nearly a year.
"Wearing Glass separates you," writes Honan in his smart year-end retrospective, 'I, Glasshole.' "It sets you apart from everyone else. It says you not only had $1,500 to plunk down to be part of the "explorer" program, but that Google deemed you special enough to warrant inclusion (not everyone who wanted Glass got it; you had to be selected). Glass is a class divide on your face."
New tech is by definition elitist: expensive with limited accessibility. But that's okay; it's the tried and true formula. Facebook began with only Harvard students. iPhones initially retailed for $600. We're suckers like that, we always want what we can't have. Class divisions become a way to signify social standing, a superficial validation of our trendiness, like the iPod's iconic white earbuds or Tesla's distinctive Model S. We might call them assholeswhich Honan experiences regularly first-hand from passers-by and, perhaps surprisingly, even tech-savvy Wired colleaguesbut we're secretly envious. Along those lines, Glass seemed destined for the same fate notes Honan, pointing out the "precious set of beautiful millennials you most commonly see wearing Glass in social settings here in the Bay Area." In the case of Glass, the demographic is mostly white men.
The NSA revelations potentially nullifies the exclusivity upside. No longer just an extravagant accessory, Glass is invasive, fashion sense notwithstanding, complicating already tenuous social rules regarding our gadget addiction.
"My Glass experiences have left me a little wary of wearables because I'm never sure where they're welcome," laments Honan. Of course, there's plenty of other reasons why Glass "is socially awkward" and makes "people uncomfortable," he writes, but privacy concerns only exacerbate social norms already difficult to overcome. Bluetooth headsets are rude because we can't be sure if the person is having another conversation. Glass is problematic because we don't know if we're being recorded (or watched, according to the more sinister narrative)................
Panopticon of global surveillance - Magda Hassan - 05-01-2014
Google and Dell and other companies have ruined their own brands. Snowden had nothing to do with it. If they choose to be evil and work for the dark side then they have to wear the consequences of their collaboration with evil and the dark side. Bring on the open hardware movement. Not as advanced as the Free and Open Source Software movement but it is happening.
Panopticon of global surveillance - Peter Lemkin - 10-01-2014
Think Metadata Isn't Intrusive? Read This
Graphs by MIT Students Show the Enormously Intrusive Nature of Metadata
by Kade Crockford
![[Image: immersion_screencap_04_500x280.jpg]](http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/immersion_screencap_04_500x280.jpg)
You've probably heard politicians or pundits say that "metadata doesn't matter." They argue that police and intelligence agencies shouldn't need probable cause warrants to collect information about our communications. Metadata isn't all that revealing, they say, it's just numbers.But the digital metadata trails you leave behind every day say more about you than you can imagine. Now, thanks to two MIT students, you don't have to imagineat least with respect to your email.
Deepak Jagdish and Daniel Smilkov's Immersion program maps your life, using your email account. After you give the researchers access to your email metadatanot the content, just the time and date stamps, and "To" and "Cc" fieldsthey'll return to you a series of maps and graphs that will blow your mind. The program will remind you of former loves, illustrate the changing dynamics of your professional and personal networks over time, mark deaths and transitions in your life, and more. You'll probably learn something new about yourself, if you study it closely enough. (The students say they delete your data on your command.)
Whether or not you grant the program access to your data, watch the video embedded below to see Jagdish and Smilkov show illustrations from Immersion and talk about what they discerned about themselves from looking at their own metadata maps. While you're watching, remember that while the NSA and FBI are collecting our phone records in bulk, and using advanced computer algorithms to make meaning from them, state and local government officials can often also get this information without a warrant.
When President Obama said that the phone surveillance program "isn't about" "listening to your telephone calls," he was deflecting attention from the terrifying fact that there's nothing currently stopping the government from amassing and data-mining every scrap of metadata in the world about us. He made it sound like metadata spying isn't a big deal, when it's pretty much the golden ticket.
Metadata surveillance is extremely powerful, and we are all subject to it, constantly. If you want to see something resembling what the NSA sees when it looks at your data, give Jagdish and Smilkov's program a try. Then tell the government: get a warrant.
Panopticon of global surveillance - Peter Lemkin - 12-01-2014
NSA Whistleblower William Binney Tells All
[While more pro-NSA than Snowden and being asked questions by a right-wing lawyer, but still has interesting things to say....] January 10, 2014
"Where I see it going is toward a totalitarian state,"says WilliamBinney. "You've got the NSA doing all this collecting ofmaterial on all of its citizens - that's what the SS, the Gestapo,the Stasi, the KGB, and the NKVD did."
Binney is talking about the collection of various forms ofpersonal data on American citizens by the National SecurityAgency (NSA), where he worked for 30 years beforequitting in 2001 from his high-placed post as technical leader forintelligence. A registered Republican for most of his life, Binneyvolunteered for military service during the Vietnam War, which ledto his being hired by the NSA in the early '70s.
In 2002 - long before the revelations of Edward Snowdenrocked the world - Binney and several former colleagues went toCongress and the Department of Defense, asking that the NSA beinvestigated. Not only was the super-secretive agency wastingtaxpayer dollars on ineffective programs, they argued, it wasbroadly violating constitutional guarantees to privacy and dueprocess.
The government didn't just turn a blind eye to theagency's activities; it later accused the whistleblowers of leakingstate secrets. A federal investigation of Binney - including an FBIsearch and seizure of his home and office computers that destroyedhis consulting business - exonerated him on all charges.
"We are a clear example that [going through] the properchannels doesn't work," says Binney,
Panopticon of global surveillance - Peter Lemkin - 13-01-2014
NSA's Preference for Metadata
January 13, 2014
Exclusive: The hidden ball in the debate over the NSA's collection of phone and e-mail metadata (vs. tapping into actual conversations with a court order) is that the NSA actually prefers the metadata approach because it strips away privacy more efficiently, says ex-NSA analyst Kirk Wiebe.By Kirk Wiebe
Senior national security officials, from President Barack Obama on down, have made light of the National Security Agency's intrusive monitoring of the public by saying "only" metadata about communications, not the content of those communications, are collected. One might ask, then, why is it that intelligence and law enforcement officials much prefer this metadata approach?
For one, analysts can determine a great deal about a person any person by following the electronic crumbs that people inevitably leave behind in the course of their daily routines. And this data-byte-crunching analysis is much less time-consuming than monitoring each phone call or reading each e-mail.
![[Image: prism-document-300x225.jpg]](http://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/prism-document.jpg)
A slide from material leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden to the Washington Post, showing what happens when an NSA analyst "tasks" the PRISM system for information about a new surveillance target.So, the distinction between listening in on conversations and "just" collecting phone numbers called and the duration of the conversations is a red herring. The truth is that persistent, bulk collection of metadata in support of analysis is not can be more revealing over time than content, the latter prohibited from collection unless probable cause criteria have been met in the eyes of a court.
Metadata collection can answer all but one of the five "W's" of journalism: the Who, What, Where and When. Given time, it can even respond to "Why" someone interfaces with digital information systems the way they do. It can do this because it is possible to discern patterns of behavior in metadata.
A very simple example: You go to work via a toll road, taking essentially the same route five days a week, for about 48 weeks a year. A license plate scanner produces information about where your car was when it was scanned and at what time. Your passive transponder (e.g., E-Z Pass) records your entrance onto the toll road at which ramp, and when you were there. The same transponder reports when and where you got off the toll road.
You stopped to get gas. Your credit card records where you were and when you bought the gas. You arrive at work and turn on your computer. Your Internet service provider (ISP) records when an IP address was given to your computer and what time it was provided. The IP address is associated with a server at a location with a specific address and is associated with your name.
So it is possible to know when you arrived at work. Or perhaps you called your wife to tell her you arrived safely. Your phone has locational information and the time of the call is recorded. Of course, the phone is associated with your account/name.
Similarly, any deviation from these patterns for whatever reason would also be apparent. A consistent deviation might reveal a significant change in your personal life (e. g. job trouble, health problems, marital difficulties).
While this ability to construct a mosaic of your life may not be understood by those inclined to believe what they hear on the evening "news" that the metadata is no real threat to your privacy this reality is eminently understandable to those familiar with the technological power of the various NSA programs. MIT graduate students, for example, have produced a video, based largely on personal experience as well as research, that makes it very clear.
A caveat here: I have not seen everything that has been released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden so far, but I have seen most. Even taken together, these documents listing the names of the programs like PRISM, XKEYSCORE and UPSTREAM and the various diagrams depicting data flows on charts would not tell much to someone unfamiliar with the technological capabilities of these programs.
What is discernible is that NSA is interested in metadata and content from the Internet, a fact that is hardly classified. NSA is also interested in phone calls. That too is not classified, nor is it new. People have known for a long time that NSA's mission is to produce foreign intelligence from communications.
Former NSA Director Michael Hayden long ago made it clear that given the rapid changes in networked communications and associated technologies NSA needed to master the "net." There was no mistaking the intent. He even said he consulted with large Internet companies and their experts in Silicon Valley.
Bottom Line: Only people who work with these programs the contractors who support information technology, the IT developers and the NSA analysts understand what these programs are, what they do and how they do it, in other words, the extraordinary power that they possess.
A Highly Damaging Leak?
As for the "damage" from unauthorized disclosures of these programs over the past half-year largely from documents leaked by Snowden, defenders of NSA bulk collection are hewing to NSA's talking points (recently acquired via a Freedom of Information request). Here are three of the 13 points listed:
"-DISCLOSURES HAVE DONE IRREVERSIBLE AND SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO SECURITY.
"-EVERY TIME THERE ARE DISCLOSURES, IT MAKES OUR JOB HARDER.
"-OUR ADVERSARIES ARE PAYING ATTENTION AND WE ALREADY SEE SIGNS THEY ARE MAKING ADJUSTMENTS." [From NSA's "MEDIA LEAKS ONE CARD"]
But these "talking points" obscure the real questions posed by the bulk collection of metadata on virtually all human beings who communicate through electronic means, from telephone to e-mail: What is the real threat posed to personal privacy by the persistent, bulk collection of metadata of innocent people? And what is the real damage from disclosure of this reality?
As for legality, do not be fooled by allusions to the infamous Smith v. Maryland (1979) court decision which says Americans surrender their expectation of privacy over call data held by phone companies upon which the Government rests its case for claiming its NSA metadata collection is legal.
That case had absolutely nothing to do with the persistent, bulk collection of metadata. The citation amounts to a stall tactic, with the Government knowing it takes just about forever for the federal court system to adjudicate the legality of such a claim while the collection will continue.
Also, be skeptical about the Government's claims about massive (but indeterminate) damage to national security. According to the rules for classifying material, it must have the potential to cause EXCEPTIONALLY GRAVE DAMAGE to the national security of the United States (TOP SECRET), SERIOUS DAMAGE to the national security (SECRET), or to cause DAMAGE to the national security (CONFIDENTIAL stuff), if divulged to the public at large.
It would be difficult for anyone in a court of law to make the case that public disclosure of NSA's intrusive collection has done any of those things. Despite the NSA's "talking points," no clear-cut evidence has been presented supporting the claims of "IRREVERSIBLE AND SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE."
But here is a real leak that caused "exceptionally grave damage" to the national security: On the night of 9/11, Sen. Orin Hatch, R-Utah, told The Associated Press, "They have an intercept of some information that includes people associated with [Osama] bin Laden who acknowledged a couple of targets were hit."
Hatch made similar comments to ABC News and said the information had come from officials at the CIA and FBI. We never heard bin Laden or any of his close associates on a satellite phone again. THAT was a true compromise of security. But nothing happened to Sen. Hatch.
Has Snowden caused great embarrassment, especially about monitoring the communications of various high-level persons in foreign countries, such as Germany and Brazil? Yes, but do any of those countries pose a security threat to the United States? None of which I am aware.
And, contrary to the alarmist claims of the NSA "talking points," the damage to intelligence sources and methods aimed at legitimate foreign targets is, so far, minimal. Part of the reason is because, quite simply, there are no current options to avoid either phones or the Internet or travel, all of which are heavily monitored. Alternatives aimed at evading monitoring are fragile, costly, inconvenient, and usually ineffective.
Another irony about all the teeth-gnashing over Snowden's revelations is this: As noted elsewhere, the U.S. government is sure to improve not degrade its intelligence gathering/analysis if it abandons the kind of mass metadata collection and storage that serves mainly to drown analysts in data.
The current system has been shown to be ineffective in identifying terrorists, raising the question: How does one damage something that is already "ineffective"?
Kirk Wiebe is a retired National Security Agency senior analyst and recipient of that Agency's second highest award the Meritorious Civilian Service Award. As an employee of NSA, he has sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. He has worked with colleagues Bill Binney, Ed Loomis, Tom Drake and Diane Roark to oppose NSA corruption and over-surveillance since 2001
Panopticon of global surveillance - Peter Lemkin - 14-01-2014
The Plan
In 2006, it was reported that the NSA had maxed out capacity of the Baltimore-area power grid. Insiders reported that"The NSA is already unable to install some costly and sophisticated new equipment. At minimum, the problem could produce disruptions leading to outages and power surges.
At worst, it could force a virtual shutdown of the agency."
August 6, 2006
In other words, the NSA has an Achilles heel.At worst, it could force a virtual shutdown of the agency."
August 6, 2006
WATER
To get around the physical limitation of the amount of power required to monitor virtually every piece of communication around the globe, the NSA started searching for new locations with their own power supplies.
The new Utah Data Center opening in Bluffdale was chosen due to the access to cheap utilities, primarily water. The water-cooled supercomputers require 1.7 million gallons of water per day to function.
No water = No data center.
The water being provided to the Utah Data Center comes from a political subdivision of the state of Utah.
They have the ability to turn that water off.
The situation is the same at many other locations. Read on for more details.
[B]4TH AMENDMENT PROTECTION ACT[/B]
[B]The model legislation (HERE), ready for introduction in any state, would ban a state (and all political subdivisions) from providing assistance or material support in any way with the NSA spying program.[/B]
[B]This would include, but is not limited to:[/B]
- [B]Refusing to supply water or electricity from state or locally-owned or operated utilities[/B]
- [B]A ban on all law enforcement acceptance of information provided without warrant, by the NSA or it's Special Operations Division (SOD)[/B]
- [B]Severe penalties for any corporations providing services for or on behalf of the state which fill the gap and provide the NSA the resources it requires to stay functional.[/B]
[B]The states and local communities should simply turn it off.[/B]
[B][B]LEGAL DOCTRINE [/B][/B]
[B][B]The legal doctrine behind this is "anti-commandeering." It's the principle that the federal government doesn't have the authority to force the states (or local communities) to carry out federal laws, regulatory programs, and the like. The Supreme Court affirmed this three times in recent years, the cases being: 1997 Printz, 2002 New York, 2012 Sebelius. It also affirmed this doctrine in the 1842 Prigg case where states refused to assist the federal government in capturing and returning runaway slaves.[/B][/B]
[B][B]This is also consistent with what James Madison advised when writing about the Constitution in Federalist #46. Among the four steps he advised as "powerful means" to oppose federal power was "a refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union."[/B][/B]
[B][B][B]MANY LOCATIONS[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B]It's not just Utah. The NSA is reliant on many states and local communities to provide the resources required to operate their spying programs.[/B][/B]
[B][B]In Texas, the new data center opening in San Antonio has its electricity provided exclusively by the the city-owned power company. And the NSA was quite upfront about the fact that Texas was chosen because of its independent power grid. The NSA is extremely concerned about basic utilities.[/B][/B]
[B][B]And states providing them don't have to.[/B][/B]
[B][B]In Augusta Georgia, the "threat operations center" has its water and even sewage treatment provided by local government services.[/B][/B]
[B][B]There's also NSA "data centers" or "listening posts" in Colorado, Washington, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Hawaii. Each one is a unique circumstance where a multi-prong strategy can and will create roadblocks to implementation.[/B][/B]
[B][B][B]CORPORATIONS[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B]While many locations rely on state or local governments to assist or directly provide badly-needed utilities, others partner closely with corporations to do so.[/B][/B]
[B][B]For example, in Augusta, Georgia, a partnership with Georgia Power (a subsidiary of the massive electric holding company in the US, the Southern Company), literally kept the lights on.[/B][/B]
[B][B]The local paper reported that "Before a partnership in 2006 with Georgia Power, outages were a regular occurrence on post, particularly during the summer, when heavy demands were placed on the system."[/B][/B]
[B][B][B]UNIVERSITIES[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B]The NSA has its tentacles deep into the youth as well, with heavy partnerships at Universities in all but 8 US states. In late 2012, the NSA reported that there are now 166 universities in this program. (see the full list here)[/B][/B]
[B][B]These "Centers of Academic Excellence" are not just a recruiting ground for future analysts in the massive spy centers around the country, they provide valuable research partnerships to bolster the NSA's spying and data-collection capabilities. Universities are often provided with funding, scholarships and other tools to expand research and recruitment.[/B][/B]
[B][B][B]LAW ENFORCEMENT[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B]The NSA has often claimed to be engaging in such activities to protect you from "terrorists," and many people have accepted this kind of personal intrusion with the belief that they were being kept safe. But the fact is that their programs are much broader by far.[/B][/B]
[B][B]The Special Operations Division (SOD) was a highly-secret federal unit which is passing information collected without warrant by the NSA to state and local law enforcement for the investigation of regular crimes not terrorism-related at all.[/B][/B]
[B][B][B]STRATEGY[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B]A multi-prong strategy is an absolute must when working to prevent the kind of 4th Amendment violations seen under the NSA spying program.[/B][/B]
[B][B]Currently, activists are engaged in the support of lawsuits from EFF and ACLU, and in support of Congressional legislation to limit or stop the NSA. But waiting for these to play out positively is a dangerous game of chicken.[/B][/B]
[B][B]A recent vote in Congress which failed to defund the NSA spying program indicates that relying on them to stop the NSA isn't enough.[/B][/B]
[B][B]By approaching the NSA on multiple fronts, it's certainly possible to overwhelm them and make their programs too difficult or costly to carry out. A program to Turn it Off and render the NSA's spying program as good as null and void intersects in 5 main areas:[/B][/B]
- [B][B]State legislation passed in every state, banning cooperation, compliance, and law enforcement collaboration.[/B][/B]
- [B][B]Local Resolutions passed in every possible county, city and town, supporting these principles and calling on the state to pass the 4th Amendment Protection Act[/B][/B]
- [B][B]Corporate Protests and opposition to those corporations providing the resources needed to carry out the NSA spying program.[/B][/B]
- [B][B]Campus Actions including both protests against NSA/University partnerships, and organizational and student government resolutions formally calling for an end to such partnerships.[/B][/B]
- [B][B]Environmental concerns the waste of resources is massive, with millions of gallons of water being used every single day at just one NSA facility.[/B][/B]
[B][B]And, as Rosa Parks proved, saying "NO!" can change the world.[/B][/B]
Panopticon of global surveillance - Magda Hassan - 14-01-2014
::grumpy::
Panopticon of global surveillance - Peter Lemkin - 17-01-2014
TRANSCRIPT: Another NSA Whistleblower, Russell Tice
By Liu Wei on Jan 16, 2014
![[Image: QQ%E6%88%AA%E5%9B%BE20140115232245-300x242.jpg]](http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/QQ%E6%88%AA%E5%9B%BE20140115232245.jpg)
Russel Tice on RT Breaking the SetEdward Snowden and his revelations are a very big deal. But he isn't the only NSA whistleblower. One who has not gotten anywhere as much attention as he deserves is Russell Tice. Wait til you hear what he has to say.
We transcribed the following July 10, 2013 interview with Russell Tice, NSA Whistleblower, by Abby Martin on RT's Breaking the Set:
Abby: As the ongoing NSA revelations [bring out] more information on the government's secret spying program, the man who leaked the story, Edward Snowden is in [the] spotlight.
However it's important to remember that this is far from the first time someone has come forward to expose the overreach of the NSA. Before Edward Snowden, it was Thomas Drake, a former senior executive, and before him, it was Bill Binney, a former intelligence official.
But before Binney, the very first person to claim the title of NSA whistleblower is a man you probably heard the least about. His name is Russell Tice, and he served twenty years within various government intelligence agencies, including the NSA. In 2005, Tice blew the whistle on the NSA engaging in unlawful and unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens. He's here to tell his story and why he thinks that Snowden's leaks are just barely scratching the surface.
Russ Tice, thank you so much for coming on.
Tice: Thanks for having me on.
Abby: What did you see that made you come and blow the whistle initially?
Tice: Well, the first thing I saw was … I'm a satellite systems specialist, so with the things I was doing with satellites, I found out sort of inadvertently, that American citizens were being spied upon by our base capabilities. So that was my first sort of heads up as to what was going on and I was just shocked because NSA was not supposed to do this, it was against regulation, it was against the law, it was against our Constitution. So it was sort of a come-to-Jesus moment for me.
Abby: Wake-up call there. You've said there are abuses that go far beyond what people are even talking about right now. How far does it go, Russ?
Tice: Well, it goes very far. Because initially what I saw was they were targeting news organizations, they were targeting U.S. companies that did international business, they were looking at financial institutions. But they were also going after the State Department and Secretary of State Colin Powell at the time. And they were going after high-ranking military generals and that was just what my space capabilities that I saw. Now later, when I got together with colleagues, and we started to put together the terrestrial side that's the side that's being done with all those nodes, all over the country, the fiber optics and that sort of thing then we found out that it got much worse. Because, and this was just the phone, that we were looking at. But it was also being done at the e-mail level, but that wasn't the information I was getting. The information I was seeing were phone numbers that were being plugged into a system that was going after people's phone numbers and associated numbers. And a lot of numbers I wasn't even sure. But they went after law firms and lawyers, they went after more generals, General Petraeus was one of the guys. It seemed like right about that three-star level they were going after admirals and generals. They went after the supreme courts, of which I held Judge Alito's paperwork in my hand. Numbers associated with Judge Alito that somebody had put into the system that NSA used to spy on Judge Alito.
Abby: Let's just break this down a little bit, because these are explosive allegations right now that I have not heard anyone talk about before. That there are actually orders that you personally saw in your hands, to wiretap Judge Alito, high-ranking intelligence officers, David Petraeus, Barack Obama …
Tice: Wannabe senator Barack Obama. At that time, he wasn't even a senator. He had won his primary in Illinois, and I think maybe the catalyst, I'm not sure, was the fact that he had just done a big speech at the Democratic convention. Now I was at that time a life-long Republican. I didn't even watch the Democratic convention. So at the time, the significance of it didn't hit me until later. I mean, I did look up, who is this guy Barack Obama, well, okay, he made a speech, blah blah blah. But then of course, later things started to come into play, that this is our future president of the United States.
Abby: And you've also said "this is not just in congressional offices. We're talking about home surveillance and personal …"
Tice: Correct. For a senator or a congressman this would be personal phone numbers associated, it would be… And a lot of the time I could not tell, because a lot of the numbers were unlisted. And we would go to try to reverse, to find out where these numbers were. And we were being very careful about it because we didn't want too many people to figure out how we were doing that. But we would find that it would be associated with family members, especially wives, or spouses, the other direction, but it would be their district office, it was a congressman for whatever state, they would have two or three or four little district offices back home so we would be …
Abby: I guess the next question, who is administering the surveillance?
Tice: That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. It looked like, the plugging in of these phone numbers was being done in the evenings at NSA. So almost it was like being done on the sly even so that most NSA employees did not know what was going on. Now, a high-level person at NSA told me this was being directed from the vice president's office. That would be Vice-President Dick Cheney. I don't know that for sure but that's what I was told from a very senior person at NSA.
Abby: so a high-level person of the Bush administration official. The next question is: why? Why was it being done? I mean, the first that comes to my mind is blackmail.
Tice: I don't know the answer to that either.
Abby: What do you think? I mean, based on your experience, Russ. What could the reason be, for wiretapping and spying on people like Obama, Judge Alito, Petraeus, …
Tice: I think you hit the word. To me, I don't know for sure, but that would be a means of control. If you were to look and be able to listen to everybody's conversation for years on end for a period of time you could probably find out perhaps some salacious information that could be used to control that individual. Now if you say the intelligence community… I noticed that the intelligence community is not being hit with the sequester, the intelligence budget. Well, how is that possible? Is there some kind of leverage that is being placed on our three branches of government, to make sure that the intelligence community gets what they want? In other words, is the intelligence community running this country, not our government?
Abby: And I guess that begs the question, what, is there some shadow government at play? I mean are we talking about the industrial military complex here, what do you think? As an insider and draw your research and people you have talked to, who is running the show here, Russ?
Tice: Well, remember, I don't know for sure, I just know that a whole lot of people got wiretapped. If I had to guess, I would say it's the upper echelon of the intelligence community that is running this show.
Abby: It makes me wonder about people like Dick Cheney. Are they still working behind the scenes? We know that these people have been working in the administration behind the scenes for decades. I mean, Kissinger, all these people, they're kind of, who knows, do you think they're still vetting people like Obama, to get him in the position that he is in. But you know what? Political opponents have been spying on each other for decades so how is this different now?
Tice: What's different about this is at the Orwellian scale. This is the everything scale. This is not just Richard Nixon going after a few, you know, enemies' list. This is everybody and everything. And now NSA is literally tapping every communication, every digital communication in this country, content, not just the metadata, the content. And when they're saying, "well, it's not that far,"
once again, they're lying. They continue to lie about the full capability.
Abby: Right. What's your response to Obama consistently saying "we are not doing that."
Tice: The previous president in April of 2004 condescendingly pointed at a camera and said: "We only do such things with a court order." Now I did not know at the time that the president was lying, because I did not know how high up that went. But now we know President Bush was lying blatantly to the American people. So now President Obama is lying to the American people. Is it because he is being controlled? I don't know. But I certainly know when he was Candidate Obama even though I was a Republican and I heard that he wanted to stop these things, that he was going to make sure that we didn't have national security letters just willy-nilly I was for Obama even though I was a conservative.
Abby: I can't trust these… All these politicians seem like actors.. You can't ever tell what these people think. But I wanted to go to the media. Really, why is the media in a frenzy over the Snowden allegations. You came out eight years ago and said almost the same thing and except on a smaller scale, Russ, and really, you've been censored. Tell us your story about trying to get this information out as well.
Tice: Well, I mean, I was trying to get the news out. With Snowden coming out, I figured, now is the time to tell the rest of the story, because I've been holding on to this for a long time. And when I went on Keith Olbermann's show four-and-a half years ago, I decided I was going to tell the media that NSA was going after journalists and news organizations and there seemed to be no interest whatsoever from the media that I was telling that NSA was going after you. So they either considered me a liar or they considered me, you know, NSA's oh this guy must be crazy, or there must be some other interest that was making sure the media was not covering this. Now I don't know what that is, but I know that it wasn't getting much coverage. So I figured with the Snowden thing… and the difference with Snowden is, he has tangible evidence. He has paper. Now because he has paper, and it has classifications, they're.. they are after him. Because he has the tangible proof of what I've said in the past. It's easy to dismiss me when it's my words, and you just say, well, that guy is a crazy liar. But now we have the proof, that what I've said in the past is true. And they want Snowden bad because he has now codified the truth with what's going on with the National Security Agency.
Abby: You said that we are living in a police state right now. Why?
Tice: Well, I sort of consider this sort of a, the light police state. Because they're hiding the fact that it is a police state. I mean the fact that they can literally go into all of our communications, all of the digital communications, the fact that … It's been disclosed recently that the post office is now doing a cover on every tangible letter that goes to the post office. They're taking the picture of everything. They're looking at the return address and they're looking at the main address at who is mailing something. And that is also being digitally stored. So every means of communication in this country, everything is being watched by the federal government. And that is Orwellian and that is a trademark of a police state.
Abby: Thank you so much.. Russ Tice, original NSA whistleblower.
You can watch the interview below.
Panopticon of global surveillance - Tracy Riddle - 18-01-2014
America's spies want Snowden dead -
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/americas-spies-want-edward-snowden-dead
"In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself," a current NSA analyst told BuzzFeed. "A lot of people share this sentiment."
"I would love to put a bullet in his head," one Pentagon official, a former special forces officer, said bluntly. "I do not take pleasure in taking another human beings life, having to do it in uniform, but he is single-handedly the greatest traitor in American history."
That violent hostility lies just beneath the surface of the domestic debate over NSA spying is still ongoing. Some members of Congress have hailed Snowden as a whistle-blower, the New York Times has called for clemency, and pundits regularly defend his actions on Sunday talk shows. In intelligence community circles, Snowden is considered a nothing short of a traitor in wartime.
"His name is cursed every day over here," a defense contractor told BuzzFeed, speaking from an overseas intelligence collections base. "Most everyone I talk to says he needs to be tried and hung, forget the trial and just hang him."
One Army intelligence officer even offered BuzzFeed a chillingly detailed fantasy.
"I think if we had the chance, we would end it very quickly," he said. "Just casually walking on the streets of Moscow, coming back from buying his groceries. Going back to his flat and he is casually poked by a passerby. He thinks nothing of it at the time starts to feel a little woozy and thinks it's a parasite from the local water. He goes home very innocently and next thing you know he dies in the shower."