US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Peter Lemkin]

white house offers tentative support for plans to rein in nsa surveillance

administration says nsa leaks have already prompted changes in intelligence-gathering, including check on un monitoring

I believe this is what is called 'lip service'...and nothing more...nothing will change for the better - mark [or record] my words.

[Magda Hassan]

Last I saw Obama was going to 'consider' not spying on his friends. What a joke.

[David Guyatt]

Last I saw Obama was going to 'consider' not spying on his friends. What a joke.

Especially when you consider that these "friends" would cut each others throat for an economic advantage. That the problem. None of them trust each other because they are all inherently untrustworthy and betraying trust is second nature to them.

[Peter Lemkin]

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online
New documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden claim the National Security Agency has broken into Google's and Yahoo!'s data centers. This program is codenamed MUSCULAR and targets data centers all around the world.
According to the leaked documents, the NSA has gained access to millions of accounts, including those of American citizens. The millions of records gathered by this program are then sent to NSA headquarters.
The information gathered by MUSCULAR includes audio, text and video exchanged through Google and Yahoo! services. Unlike PRISM, a program that gives the NSA front-door access to similar information from a host of Internet companies such as Microsoft and Apple, MUSCULAR operates without the cooperation of these tech firms.
According to the Washington Post, who broke the story, two engineers close to Google broke out into profanities when they saw slides describing how this invasive program works.
NSA's MUSCULAR is operated jointly with the UK's Government Communications Headquarters and both agencies are said to stand between the public and Google and Yahoo! data centers, copying all the information passed between the two. Though Snowden continues to shed light on the extent to which the NSA can monitor global communications, the aptly titled MUSCULAR is so far the most aggressive method used by the agency.
In a statement, Google said they were not aware the NSA had taken such extreme surveillance measures and called the allegations "troubling."
"We have long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we continue to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links," claimed a Google spokesperson in a statement to the Washington Post.
A Yahoo! spokesperson echoed Google's claims stating, "We have strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency."
Both Google and Yahoo! pay a premium to build a faster network to deliver their services to customers quickly and efficiently. These companies take pride in their networks and felt they were both quite safe. Google, for instance, often extols its encryption services and its firm grasp on its intellectual property. A hand drawn slide describing how the NSA circumvented security measures proclaims MUSCULAR is able to remove any encryption at the point it's added by Google. The person who drew the slide even included a smiley face in celebration of his or her ability to break into the data center of one of the world's largest companies.
When asked about MUSCULAR and the Washington Post report, the head of the NSA said he wasn't aware of the report and said the NSA isn't allowed to stand between data centers and copy data. When asked if his agency had tapped the data centers without a court's approval, General Keith Alexander replied simply "Not to my knowledge."
With every new revelation of additional NSA programs, General Alexander stands by the actions of his agency. "It's legal, it's necessary and it's authorized, in every case."

[David Guyatt]

Typical Tory tosh if you ask me:

GCHQ revelations may be treasonous, MP claims

The Guardian newspaper may be guilty of treason after revealing the existence of a secret web surveillance programme, a Conservative MP has claimed.


Edward Snowden Photo: EPA



By Matthew Holehouse

6:33PM GMT 31 Oct 2013



The Guardian newspaper may be guilty of treason after publishing details of an internet surveillance programme, a Tory MP has claimed.

Julian Smith claimed the decision to publish details of British and American web interception programmes had threatened national security and undermined the investigation of internet paedophiles.

Files obtained by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, had been shared online by Guardian journalists, and their so-called data dumps had come to the attention of hackers, Mr Smith told MPs. The newspaper should tell the government whether it holds the names of intelligence officials and how the information is guarded, he said.

The NSA's penetration of TOR an online network that grants web users anonymity had helped catch paedophiles but that ability had been compromised by the newspaper's reports, he said at a Westminster Hall debate in Parliament today.

"I think we are in a situation where the Guardian, which had every right to report on this issue, which has raised important topics of debate, which had done so in a digital, global way with good journalism, has threatened the security of our country and today stands guilty potentially of treasonous behaviour."

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But Dominic Raab MP, a former Foreign Office lawyer who sits on the right of the Tory Party, said the legal justification for Tempora, one of the programmes exposed by the Guardian, is "thin at best".
Claims by Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, that the exposing the spy programmes had handed terrorists a "gift" and helped them drop off the radar are "shrill and unsubstantiated", Mr Raab said.
"Any serious terrorist group assumes their phones, emails and internet use will be monitored. Learning that western spies drain the swamp of their own citizens' data does not aid terrorists in any tangible way," he said. The state had left itself vulnerable by letting hundreds of thousands of junior employees, including Mr Snowden, access the files and had been embarrassed.
"The bold assertion of national security' cannot be used to guillotine all debate," he added. The Intelligence and Security Committee, the Parliamentary body which oversees spies, lacks the tools and independence to do its job properly, he added.
Tom Watson, the MP for West Bromwich East, said the Guardian and Edward Snowden had acted "courageously" in exposing Tempora, a GCHQ programme which intercepts personal data by tapping into fibre optic cables.
"The Tempora programme has been mining our internet communications data without public knowledge on a colossal scale," he said.
"This is the secret state laid bare, the Government acting without the knowledge or permission of its citizens, a flagrant breach of an individual's moral and probably legal rights for what it believes is the common good. Just like when they take away the votes of the misguided, the common good is not a defence," he said.
He added: "I ask you to please remember an individual's data is just like his or her vote - almost insignificant by itself, privately expressed, but massively powerful when aggregated."
Martin Horwood, the MP for Cheltenham, where GCHQ is based, said its staff had been left angered by suggestions they break the law or act in bad faith.
Edward Snowden had "in effect" handed thousands of pages of top secret documents to foreign intelligence services and terrorists by speaking to the Guardian.
"Had he not used the media as a medium no-one would have hesitated to call him a traitor," Mr Horwood said. "If you cast too much sunlight on these things they stop working."
Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, said claims of "sinister" mass surveillance are unfounded because the programmes exposed by the Guardian use algorithms to automatically sift emails for certain words. All but 0.01 per cent are discarded, and the contents of the rest can only be inspected with the permission of the Home Secretary. "Pretty much everyone in this room is not having their emails intercepted or read," he said.
A "cultural revolution" means the ISC now has the power to send officials into the GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 and inspect files, giving Britain unrivalled oversight of its intelligence agencies, he said.
Asked by Michael Meacher, a former minister, why the committee was left in the dark about the surveillance programmes, Mr Rifkind said: "The right honourable gentleman does not have any idea whether the committee was aware of programmes of any kind. When we are given classified information we don't announce it."
Richard Graham MP, a former British diplomat in China, says the debate had been marked by "hysteria and naivete" and he said he believed GCHQ operates with "upmost morality". "Intelligence agencies do eavesdrop," he added.

Telegraph

[Peter Lemkin]

So, will they send a Special Forces team disguised as tourists to Russia to give Snowden a poison pill, dart or Polonium - stage an 'accident' or even a 'suicide'?!...nah...they already have assets in Russia and would use them. Some open democracy! Some right for the Public to know what the hell the government is doing! Trust us, we're the Government - everything we do is for our...errr...YOUR benefit!

[David Guyatt]

GCHQ tutored other European nations how to circumvent their own national laws...

Oh perfidious Albion!

On the other hand oh perfidious Albion, France, Germany, Spain et al. Surveilling their nationals is today a global disease of sovereign states.

GCHQ and European spy agencies worked together on mass surveillance

Edward Snowden papers unmask close technical cooperation and loose alliance between British, German, French, Spanish and Swedish spy agencies
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• Julian Borger
  
• The Guardian, Friday 1 November 2013 17.02 GMT
  
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In this photo illustration, the logos of intelligence agencies the NSA, BND, GCHQ, DGSE are displayed on folders. Photograph: Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images

The German, French, Spanish and Swedish intelligence services have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years in close partnership with Britain's GCHQeavesdropping agency.
The bulk monitoring is carried out through direct taps into fibre optic cables and the development of covert relationships with telecommunications companies. A loose but growing eavesdropping alliance has allowed intelligence agencies from one country to cultivate ties with corporations from another to facilitate the trawling of the web, according to GCHQ documents leaked by the former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
The files also make clear that GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around national laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies.
The German, French and Spanish governments have reacted angrily to reports based on National Security Agency (NSA) files leaked by Snowden since June, revealing the interception of communications by tens of millions of their citizens each month. US intelligence officials have insisted the mass monitoring was carried out by the security agencies in the countries involved and shared with the US.
The US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, suggested to Congress on Tuesday that European governments' professed outrage at the reports was at least partly hypocritical. "Some of this reminds me of the classic movie Casablanca: 'My God, there's gambling going on here,' " he said.
Sweden, which passed a law in 2008 allowing its intelligence agency to monitor cross-border email and phone communications without a court order, has been relatively muted in its response.
The German government, however, has expressed disbelief and fury at the revelations from the Snowden documents, including the fact that the NSA monitored Angela Merkel's mobile phone calls.
After the Guardian revealed the existence of GCHQ's Tempora programme, in which the electronic intelligence agency tapped directly into the transatlantic fibre optic cables to carry out bulk surveillance, the German justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said it sounded "like a Hollywood nightmare", and warned the UK government that free and democratic societies could not flourish when states shielded their actions in "a veil of secrecy".
'Huge potential'

However, in a country-by-country survey of its European partners, GCHQ officials expressed admiration for the technical capabilities of German intelligence to do the same thing. The survey in 2008, when Tempora was being tested, said the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), had "huge technological potential and good access to the heart of the internet they are already seeing some bearers running at 40Gbps and 100Gbps".
Bearers is the GCHQ term for the fibre optic cables, and gigabits per second (Gbps) measures the speed at which data runs through them. Four years after that report, GCHQ was still only able to monitor 10 Gbps cables, but looked forward to tap new 100 Gbps bearers eventually. Hence the admiration for the BND.
The document also makes clear that British intelligence agencies were helping their German counterparts change or bypass laws that restricted their ability to use their advanced surveillance technology. "We have been assisting the BND (along with SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] and Security Service) in making the case for reform or reinterpretation of the very restrictive interception legislation in Germany," it says.
The country-by-country survey, which in places reads somewhat like a school report, also hands out high marks to the GCHQ's French partner, the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE). But in this case it is suggested that the DGSE's comparative advantage is its relationship with an unnamed telecommunications company, a relationship GCHQ hoped to leverage for its own operations.
"DGSE are a highly motivated, technically competent partner, who have shown great willingness to engage on IP [internet protocol] issues, and to work with GCHQ on a "cooperate and share" basis."
Noting that the Cheltenham-based electronic intelligence agency had trained DGSE technicians on "multi-disciplinary internet operations", the document says: "We have made contact with the DGSE's main industry partner, who has some innovative approaches to some internet challenges, raising the potential for GCHQ to make use of this company in the protocol development arena."
GCHQ went on to host a major conference with its French partner on joint internet-monitoring initiatives in March 2009 and four months later reported on shared efforts on what had become by then GCHQ's biggest challenge continuing to carry out bulk surveillance, despite the spread of commercial online encryption, by breaking that encryption.
"Very friendly crypt meeting with DGSE in July," British officials reported. The French were "clearly very keen to provide presentations on their work which included cipher detection in high-speed bearers. [GCHQ's] challenge is to ensure that we have enough UK capability to support a longer term crypt relationship."
Fresh opportunities

In the case of the Spanish intelligence agency, the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), the key to mass internet surveillance, at least back in 2008, was the Spaniards' ties to a British telecommunications company (again unnamed. Corporate relations are among the most strictly guarded secrets in the intelligence community). That was giving them "fresh opportunities and uncovering some surprising results.
"GCHQ has not yet engaged with CNI formally on IP exploitation, but the CNI have been making great strides through their relationship with a UK commercial partner. GCHQ and the commercial partner have been able to coordinate their approach. The commercial partner has provided the CNI some equipment whilst keeping us informed, enabling us to invite the CNI across for IP-focused discussions this autumn," the report said. It concluded that GCHQ "have found a very capable counterpart in CNI, particularly in the field of Covert Internet Ops".
GCHQ was clearly delighted in 2008 when the Swedish parliament passed a bitterly contested law allowing the country's National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) to conduct Tempora-like operations on fibre optic cables. The British agency also claimed some credit for the success.
"FRA have obtained a … probe to use as a test-bed and we expect them to make rapid progress in IP exploitation following the law change," the country assessment said. "GCHQ has already provided a lot of advice and guidance on these issues and we are standing by to assist the FRA further once they have developed a plan for taking the work forwards."
The following year, GCHQ held a conference with its Swedish counterpart "for discussions on the implications of the new legislation being rolled out" and hailed as "a success in Sweden" the news that FRA "have finally found a pragmatic solution to enable release of intelligence to SAEPO [the internal Swedish security service.]"
GCHQ also maintains strong relations with the two main Dutch intelligence agencies, the external MIVD and the internal security service, the AIVD.
"Both agencies are small, by UK standards, but are technically competent and highly motivated," British officials reported. Once again, GCHQ was on hand in 2008 for help in dealing with legal constraints. "The AIVD have just completed a review of how they intend to tackle the challenges posed by the internet GCHQ has provided input and advice to this report," the country assessment said.
"The Dutch have some legislative issues that they need to work through before their legal environment would allow them to operate in the way that GCHQ does. We are providing legal advice on how we have tackled some of these issues to Dutch lawyers."
European allies

In the score-card of European allies, it appears to be the Italians who come off the worse. GCHQ expresses frustration with the internal friction between Italian agencies and the legal limits on their activities.
"GCHQ has had some CT [counter-terrorism] and internet-focused discussions with both the foreign intelligence agency (AISE) and the security service (AISI), but has found the Italian intelligence community to be fractured and unable/unwilling to cooperate with one another," the report said.
A follow-up bulletin six months later noted that GCHQ was "awaiting a response from AISI on a recent proposal for cooperation the Italians had seemed keen, but legal obstacles may have been hindering their ability to commit."
It is clear from the Snowden documents that GCHQ has become Europe's intelligence hub in the internet age, and not just because of its success in creating a legally permissive environment for its operations. Britain's location as the European gateway for many transatlantic cables, and its privileged relationship with the NSA has made GCHQ an essential partner for European agencies. The documents show British officials frequently lobbying the NSA on sharing of data with the Europeans and haggling over its security classification so it can be more widely disseminated. In the intelligence world, far more than it managed in diplomacy, Britain has made itself an indispensable bridge between America and Europe's spies.

[David Guyatt]

British police re-modelling McCarthy era politics?

This is quite disgraceful.

Metropolitan police detained David Miranda for promoting 'political' causes

• Jamie Doward
  
• The Observer, Saturday 2 November 2013 20.00 GMT
  
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David Miranda was arrested and held for nine hours at Heathrow airport under powers granted by the Terrorism Act. Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

The detention of the partner of a former Guardian journalist has triggered fresh concerns after it emerged that a key reason cited by police for holding him under terrorism powers was the belief that he was promoting a "political or ideological cause".
The revelation has alarmed leading human rights groups and a Tory MP, who said the justification appeared to be without foundation and threatened to have damaging consequences for investigative journalism.
David Miranda is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who often in collaboration with the Guardian has broken many stories about the extent and scope of spying by the US National Security Agency. Miranda was stopped at Heathrow airport in August and held by the Metropolitan police for nine hours while on his way home to Brazil.
Miranda, it has been claimed, was carrying some 58,000 encrypted UK intelligence documents. He had spent a week in Berlin visiting a journalist, Laura Poitras, who has worked with Greenwald on many of his stories, which have been based on information leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Now documents referred to in court last week before a judicial review of Miranda's detention shine new light on the Metropolitan police's explanation for invoking terrorism powers a decision critics have called draconian.
It became apparent during the court hearing that there were several drafts of the Port Circular Notice the document used to request Miranda's detention under schedule 7 to the 2000 Terrorism Act before the final version was submitted.
The draft that was finally used states: "Intelligence indicates that Miranda is likely to be involved in espionage activity which has the potential to act against the interests of UK national security. We therefore wish to establish the nature of Miranda's activity, assess the risk that Miranda poses to national security and mitigate as appropriate."
The notice then went on to explain why police officers believed that the terrorism act was appropriate.
"We assess that Miranda is knowingly carrying material, the release of which would endanger people's lives. Additionally the disclosure or threat of disclosure is designed to influence a government, and is made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause. This therefore falls within the definition of terrorism and as such we request that the subject is examined under schedule 7."
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said the police assessment represented a "chilling" threat to democracy. "More and more we are shocked but not surprised," she said. "Breathtakingly broad anti-terror powers passed under the last government continue to be abused under the coalition that once trumpeted civil liberties.
"The express admission that politics motivated the detention of David Miranda should shame police and legislators alike. It's not just the schedule 7 detention power that needs urgent overhaul, but a definition of terrorism that should chill the blood of any democrat."
Padraig Reidy of Index on Censorship, which campaigns for free speech, said that the police's justification for Miranda's detention was "very dangerous" for investigative journalism. "The whole point of such journalism is to find stuff the government doesn't want raised," he said. "The message this gives off is 'don't find this sort of stuff, or you will be treated as a terrorist'."
Greenwald was equally scathing, tweeting: "UK govt beats its mighty chest, now explicitly equates journalism with 'terrorism' and 'espionage'."
The home secretary, Theresa May, has criticised the Guardian's decision to publish the Snowden leaks. May has said she agrees with the assessment of Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, that the newspaper had damaged Britain's national security. But Conservative MP Dominic Raab said: "The assertion that national security has been undermined has been bandied around wildly and not explained in any cogent way."
And he questioned the police's handling of the Miranda affair. "If he was behaving in such a nefarious way why wasn't he arrested, charged and bailed?" Raab said. "If he was guilty of putting national security at risk, then why did they let him go?"
Gwendolen Morgan of Bindmans, Miranda's solicitors, said this week's judicial review will focus on whether the use of schedule 7 was disproportionate and whether it was incompatible with the inalienable right to freedom of expression.
"We will argue that draconian counter-terrorism powers were used in our client's case for an improper purpose," Morgan said. "Not to determine whether our client could in any sense be considered a 'terrorist', but rather to retrieve potentially embarrassing journalistic material in his possession."
The impact of Snowden's leaks on national security is expected to be addressed this week when parliament's intelligence and security committee will question the heads of MI6, MI5 and GCHQ in public for the first time.

[Magda Hassan]

British police re-modelling McCarthy era politics?

This is quite disgraceful.

This is all of us.

The detention of the partner of a former Guardian journalist has triggered fresh concerns after it emerged that a key reason cited by police for holding him under terrorism powers was the belief that he was promoting a "political or ideological cause".

Wonder when they will use the same laws to arrest the Pope next time he passes through Gatwick or Heathrow? We know they wont pinch him for hiding pedophile priests.

[David Guyatt]

Chalk one up for the worlds leading human rights organisations for condemning the poodle for bowing to US pressure.

UK government reaction to NSA leaks eroding freedom, rights groups warn

Coalition of organisations says Cameron's response has damaged UK's reputation for freedom of expression

Read the open letter to David Cameron
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• Matthew Taylor and Nick Hopkins
  
• The Guardian, Sunday 3 November 2013 17.02 GMT
  
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The UK government, led by David Cameron, has condemned investigative journalism, leading human rights groups say. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Seventy of the world's leading human rights organisations have written toDavid Cameron to warn that the government's reaction to the mass surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden is leading to an erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms in the UK.
The coalition, which includes organisations from 40 countries, said it had become increasingly alarmed at the way the UK government had applied pressure on media groups covering the leaks and its use of national security concerns to close down important public interest debates.
"We have joined together as an international coalition because we believe that the United Kingdom government's response to the revelations of mass surveillance of digital communications is eroding fundamental human rights in the country," the letter states. "The government's response has been to condemn, rather than celebrate investigative journalism, which plays a crucial role in a healthy democratic society."
The intervention comes five months after the Guardian, and major media organisations in other countries, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, began disclosing details of the extent and reach of secret surveillance programmes run by Britain's eavesdropping centre,GCHQ, and its US counterpart, the National Security Agency. The revelations now appearing in European media outlets have sparked a huge debate on the scale and oversight of surveillance by the US and UK intelligence agencies.
The open letter to the prime minister, which was organised by Article 19 in the UK and is signed by groups from the US to Malaysia and Israel, says the British government response has damaged the country's longstanding reputation for freedom of expression and a free press.
"The UK has a strong history of democracy, and while targeted surveillance may play an important role in protecting national security, in doing so it should not erode the very values it seeks to protect. We call on you to honour the UK's international obligations to defend and protect the right to freedom of expression and media freedom, and to end the UK government's pressure on the Guardian and those who assist them."
The letter, signed by Liberty, Privacy International and Reporters without Borders, highlights the detention of David Miranda, the partner of the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in August, which is subject to an ongoing challenge at the high court, and what it describes as the sustained pressure the government has brought to bear on the Guardian.
"We believe these actions clearly violate the right to freedom of expression, which is protected under British, European and international law … We also believe that this use of national security will have dangerous consequences for the right to freedom of expression and media freedom in the UK and beyond, creating a hostile and intimidating environment and discouraging those who could reveal uncomfortable truths and hold those in power to account."
Last week Cameron issued a veiled threat to take tougher measures against the Guardian and other newspapers that have covered the story. "I don't want to have to use injunctions or D notices or the other tougher measures," Cameron said. "I think it's much better to appeal to newspapers' sense of social responsibility. But if they don't demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act."
He has also encouraged a parliamentary select committee to investigate whether the Guardian has broken the law or damaged national security in its reporting.
Thomas Hughes, the executive director of Article 19, said Cameron's response had been to shoot the messengers rather than engage with the wider issues that had been raised.
"Edward Snowden, David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian are being painted as the villains of this piece. They are being targeted for raising a matter of serious public interest. This seems to be a convenient distraction from what might otherwise be a story about state overreach and inadequate oversight of power."