US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Magda Hassan]

Looks like it is Ecuardor. At least he will have more leg room and sunshine than Assange.

Two cars of the embassy of Ecuador in Moscow are parked outside the terminal where Edward Snowden, the former contractor for the U.S. National Security Agency, is believed to have landed in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, June 23, 2013. (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov)

[Magda Hassan]

[Magda Hassan]

Google handed over years of e-mails belonging to WikiLeaks chatroom admin

Google informed two men that a US court order mandated secret searches in 2011.

by Cyrus Farivar - June 22 2013, 10:19pm AUSEST

Smári McCarthy, in his Twitter bio, describes himself as a "Information freedom activist. Executive Director of IMMI. Pirate."
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On Friday, two Icelandic activists with previous connections to WikiLeaks announced that they received newly unsealed court orders from Google. Google sent the orders earlier in the week, revealing that the company searched and seized data from their Gmail accountslikely as a result of a grand jury investigation into the rogue whistleblower group.
Google was forbidden under American law from disclosing these orders to the men until the court lifted this restriction in early May 2013. (A Google spokesperson referred Ars to its Transparency Report for an explanation of its policies.)
On June 21, 2013, well-known Irish-Icelandic developer Smári McCarthy published his recently un-sealed court order dating back to July 14, 2011. Google sent him the order, which included McCarthy's Gmail account metadata, the night before. The government cited the Stored Communications Act (SCA)(specifically a 2703(d) order) as grounds to provide this order.
Meanwhile, Herbert Snorrason received a D-order dated from May 2011 for the metadata and a search warrant (citing 2703(f) of the SCA) for "the contents of all e-mails associated with the account, including stored or preserved copies of e-mails sent to and from the account, draft e-mails, deleted e-mails…the source and destination addresses associated with each e-mail, the date and time at which each e-mail was sent, and the size and length of each e-mail."
Snorrason, according to Wired, helped "manage WikiLeaks' secure chat room in 2010 but later left inprotest in September 2010." The northwestern Icelander confirmed to Ars that he served in this role for "approximately two months in 2010."
"Thankfully, neither of us use our Google accounts for anything remotely sensitive," McCarthy wrote on his blog on Friday.
Under the federal statute that allows for the D-order, authorities can't receive the contents of electronic communication but can find out where and to whom it was said. In contemporary cases from the last decade, law enforcement and judges have increasingly used this reasoning to acquire all kinds of metadata on digital communications that previously required a much higher legal thresholda probable cause-driven warrant.
"We know the government gets warrants for e-mail access pretty frequently and it's a good thing that they're getting warrants and not [just] D-orders, which is something we wanted them to shift to for a long time," said Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "To me, without seeing the affidavit, it looks like they got all e-mails. That's a pretty broad request, notwithstanding that they got a warrant."

"Do I have no rights, not being a US citizen?"

Snorrason spoke with Ars and echoed McCarthy's position, speaking out against such judicial orders issued under seal.
"Really, I think the most important thing here is getting people to realize that this madness is going on," Snorrason told Ars. "All my details, just because I talked to an 'undesirable?' Do I have no rights, not being a US citizen?"
Snorrason elaborated on this idea in a blog post:

That's rather a lot of information. Particularly in light of the fact that I'm not allowed to know why they're asking for this information. I assume it's because I had a conversation or a few with a white-haired Australian guy, but there's nothing in the documents to confirm this. Let's reiterate this, because that's the point I find the most remarkable in all of this: Because I talked to Julian Assange, all information held by Google relating to my user account with them can be handed over to US prosecutorsnot just the contents of my conversations with Julian.

[David Guyatt]

The NSA doesn't seem to get the irony when they accuse Snowden of breeching their trust and stealing secrets.

:pointlaugh::pointlaugh::phone::phone::phone::phone::phone::phone:

[Peter Lemkin]

Apparent ongoing mystery. Flight from Moscow to Havana that Snowden was supposed to be on [and reporters purchased every empty seat available!...just left w/o Snowden [unless he's in disguise or hidden in the bathroom....some sort of glitch or bait and switch underway?.....]

[Magda Hassan]

Apparent ongoing mystery. Flight from Moscow to Havana that Snowden was supposed to be on [and reporters purchased every empty seat available!...just left w/o Snowden [unless he's in disguise or hidden in the bathroom....some sort of glitch or bait and switch underway?.....]

Poor journos. Might take them several days relaxing in the sunshine listening to some lovely music before they can wrangle a return air trip.

[Magda Hassan]

6/23/13

Snowden and Ecuador

With Edward Snowden now apparently en route to the sunny palm-shaded beaches of Guaya, some thoughts. Yes, we're about to get a ton of snark about press freedom in Ecuador. But more importantly...


1) We're about to find out just how sensitive the information Snowden is carrying might be. Because you can be darned sure that by now the U.S Government has a very good idea of exactly what Snowden knows, what he's downloaded etc and if it's really enough to bring down the whole edifice, he's not going to reach Ecuador. However, if the documents held by Edwards are less than State-threatening, he'll make it ok.


2) Therefore, if you happen to be reading this and have a plane ticket booked for the Moscow/Habana run in the next 24 hours, you may want to consider deferring that flight for a couple of days. Either that or checking that all your insurance papers are in good order. Don't forget to kiss the kids before you leave, either.


3) Assuming Wikileaks is behind the liaison, Assange isn't going to make it out of that Ecuador embassy, either. Whatever Snowden might say about non-dissemination of information to third parties (which may be true or may be false), be sure that the USA will assume that both Assange and the Rafael Correa government will be given copies of the contents of Snowden's hard drives.


4) Meanwhile, Rafael Correa has proven balls in the face of direct threats (recall the events of September 2011) so he's not going to be easily cowed. Again, the way in which the US engages with Ecuador once asylum is granted to Snowden (and it will be) will be a tell on the sensitivity of the documents, but in this case the more aggressive the US stance, the less they truly care about the docs that Snowden carries. Conversely, the quiet diplo route will indicate real nerves.


5) Suggested viewing is The Mouse That Roared, an entertaining movie made in 1959 (adapted from a novel, which I haven't read) and starring Peter Sellers.
http://incakolanews.blogspot.com.au/2013...la+news%29

[Magda Hassan]

Hanoi?

[Peter Lemkin]

Hanoi?

Someone's playing an interesting game of 'cat and mouse' against the media, and more importantly, against the US rendition teams. :popworm: Look at this media scrum!

[David Guyatt]

Last rumoured to be in a hotel room at the airport in Moscow and, therefore, un-extriditable as he's not officially on Russian soil.