US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[David Guyatt]

Snowden plea bargain speculation played down by ex-CIA and NSA chief

Michael Hayden says he sees little appetite for deal with whistleblower, and portrays US surveillance reforms as limited

• Ewen MacAskill, defence and security correspondent
  
• theguardian.com, Monday 10 February 2014 23.36 GMT
  
• Jump to comments (98)
  

Ex-CIA and NSA chief Michael Hayden told an audience in Oxford that the media had missed context in its reporting of the NSA leaks. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters

The former head of the CIA and the NSA, General Michael Hayden, dampened speculation on Monday that the US might offer a plea bargain to Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower.
Hayden, speaking at an Oxford University lecture, said that while deals had been done with other leakers in the past, he detected little enthusiasm for such a deal for Snowden.
His comments come after the US attorney-general Eric Holder and others within the Obama administration hinted at a possible plea bargain.
Snowden has temporary asylum in Russia until July and in the event of being refused an extension would have a further year in the country to appeal. In spite of sympathy for him in many western European countries, none of their governments are prepared to risk angering the US by granting him asylum.
Hayden used a 90-minute lecture and question-and-answer session at Pembroke College to defend the NSA and Britain's GCHQ from the controversy created by the leak of the Snowden documents.
In a surprise admission, Hayden portrayed the reforms recently announced by Barack Obama in the wake of the controversy as limited, with the president allowing the intelligence community "a pretty big box" in which to continue to operate.
Some of the changes were more than just cosmetic, he said, but overall the president and the intelligence community could largely continue as before.
Asked by the Guardian about a deal that would see Snowden return to the US without a hefty prison sentence in exchange for a return of the tens of thousands of leaked documents, Hayden referred to deals done in the past.
"There have been arrangements but I do not think there is a lot of enthusiasm inside the US for that kind of deal [in the case of Snowden]," Hayden said.
Referring to what he described as the "excitement" of the last eight months since the first batch of Snowden stories appeared, Hayden said that heads of the NSA and GCHQ must be looking every morning with apprehension at the next story. There was a rhythm of a new accusation every seven to ten days that had left the governments in the US and UK on the back foot, he said.
Hayden accused the Guardian the Washington Post and Der Spiegel of hyping the issues. But he acknowledged they had provided a service too. "I freely admit that what these writers and writers like them have done has accelerated a necessary and frankly inevitable discussion," he said, while adding they had "misshaped the discussion".
The main failing of the media had been its failure to provide context, he said like arriving towards the end of a film and trying to work out who was the good guy and the bad guy.
That context missed by the media, Hayden said, included the post-cold war change from challenges posed by a state to those posed by stateless terrorists ; the technological revolution that brought about the internet; and cultural differences about privacy in the US and Europe.
Damage had been done to the NSA, with terrorists changing their methods of communications, he claimed.
On the recent announcement by Obama in response to the controversy, he said the president had essentially backed the NSA.
Some of the reforms, Hayden felt, were more than cosmetic and would be burdensome for the NSA, but he said on the whole that the agency still had a lot of room for manoeuvre, and would continue to collect metadata.
Although President Obama had said he would order an end to listening into the calls of friendly leaders, Hayden noted that this would only apply until such time as the US decided there was a good reason to hack the calls.
"I guess what I am saying is this president, who most people view as being quite different than his predecessor, doubled down on a programme being done under his predecessor. He gave the American intelligence community a pretty big box," Hayden said.
"The president is essentially trading some restraint, some oversight, in order to keep on doing fundamentally what he has been doing."

.

[David Guyatt]

::

Surveillance revelations: Angela Merkel proposes European network to beat NSA and GCHQ spying



TONY PATERSON

BERLIN

Sunday 16 February 2014

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has announced plans to set up a European communications network as part of a broad counter-espionage offensive designed to curb mass surveillance conducted by the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart, GCHQ.

The move is her government's first tangible response to public and political indignation over NSA and GCHQ spying in Europe, which was exposed last October with revelations that the US had bugged Ms Merkel's mobile phone and that MI6 operated a listening post from the British Embassy in Berlin.
Announcing the project in her weekly podcast, Ms Merkel said she envisaged setting up a European communications network which would offer protection from NSA surveillance by side-stepping the current arrangement whereby emails and other internet data automatically pass through the United States.
The NSA's German phone and internet surveillance operation is reported to be one of the biggest in the EU. In co-operation with GCHQ it has direct access to undersea cables carrying transatlantic communications between Europe and the US.
Ms Merkel said she planned to discuss the project with the French President, François Hollande, when she meets him in Paris on Wednesday. "Above all we'll talk about European providers that offer security to our citizens, so that one shouldn't have to send emails and other information across the Atlantic," she said. "Rather one could build up a communications network inside Europe."
French government officials responded by saying Paris intended to "take up" the German initiative.
Ms Merkel's proposals appear to be part of a wider German counter-espionage offensive, reported to be under way in several of Germany's intelligence agencies, against NSA and GCHQ surveillance.
Der Spiegel magazine said on Sunday that it had obtained information about plans by Germany's main domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, for a "massive" increase in counter-espionage measures.
The magazine said there were plans to subject both the American and British Embassies in Berlin to surveillance. It said the measures would include obtaining exact details about intelligence agents who were accredited as diplomats, and information about the technology being used within the embassies.
Last year information provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that US intelligence agents were able to bug Ms Merkel's mobile phone from a listening post on the US Embassy roof. Investigations by The Independent subsequently revealed that GCHQ ran a similar listening post from the roof of the British Embassy in Berlin.
Intelligence experts say it is difficult if not impossible to control spying activities conducted from foreign embassies, not least because their diplomatic status means they are protected from the domestic legislation of the host country.
Der Spiegel said Germany's military intelligence service, (MAD) was also considering stepping up surveillance of US and British spying activities. It said such a move would mark a significant break with previous counter-espionage practice which had focused on countries such as China, North Korea and Russia.
Germany's counter-espionage drive comes after months of repeated and abortive attempts by its officials to reach a friendly "no spy" agreement with the US. Phillip Missfelder, a spokesman for Ms Merkel's government, admitted recently that revelations about NSA spying had brought relations with Washington to their worst level since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Der Spiegel claimed that on a single day last year, January 7, the NSA tapped into some 60 million German phone calls. The magazine said that Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand were exempt from NSA surveillance but Germany was regarded as a country open to "spy attacks".

[Lauren Johnson]

::

Surveillance revelations: Angela Merkel proposes European network to beat NSA and GCHQ spying



TONY PATERSON

BERLIN

Sunday 16 February 2014

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has announced plans to set up a European communications network as part of a broad counter-espionage offensive designed to curb mass surveillance conducted by the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart, GCHQ.

The move is her government's first tangible response to public and political indignation over NSA and GCHQ spying in Europe, which was exposed last October with revelations that the US had bugged Ms Merkel's mobile phone and that MI6 operated a listening post from the British Embassy in Berlin.
Announcing the project in her weekly podcast, Ms Merkel said she envisaged setting up a European communications network which would offer protection from NSA surveillance by side-stepping the current arrangement whereby emails and other internet data automatically pass through the United States.
The NSA's German phone and internet surveillance operation is reported to be one of the biggest in the EU. In co-operation with GCHQ it has direct access to undersea cables carrying transatlantic communications between Europe and the US.
Ms Merkel said she planned to discuss the project with the French President, François Hollande, when she meets him in Paris on Wednesday. "Above all we'll talk about European providers that offer security to our citizens, so that one shouldn't have to send emails and other information across the Atlantic," she said. "Rather one could build up a communications network inside Europe."
French government officials responded by saying Paris intended to "take up" the German initiative.
Ms Merkel's proposals appear to be part of a wider German counter-espionage offensive, reported to be under way in several of Germany's intelligence agencies, against NSA and GCHQ surveillance.
Der Spiegel magazine said on Sunday that it had obtained information about plans by Germany's main domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, for a "massive" increase in counter-espionage measures.
The magazine said there were plans to subject both the American and British Embassies in Berlin to surveillance. It said the measures would include obtaining exact details about intelligence agents who were accredited as diplomats, and information about the technology being used within the embassies.
Last year information provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that US intelligence agents were able to bug Ms Merkel's mobile phone from a listening post on the US Embassy roof. Investigations by The Independent subsequently revealed that GCHQ ran a similar listening post from the roof of the British Embassy in Berlin.
Intelligence experts say it is difficult if not impossible to control spying activities conducted from foreign embassies, not least because their diplomatic status means they are protected from the domestic legislation of the host country.
Der Spiegel said Germany's military intelligence service, (MAD) was also considering stepping up surveillance of US and British spying activities. It said such a move would mark a significant break with previous counter-espionage practice which had focused on countries such as China, North Korea and Russia.
Germany's counter-espionage drive comes after months of repeated and abortive attempts by its officials to reach a friendly "no spy" agreement with the US. Phillip Missfelder, a spokesman for Ms Merkel's government, admitted recently that revelations about NSA spying had brought relations with Washington to their worst level since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Der Spiegel claimed that on a single day last year, January 7, the NSA tapped into some 60 million German phone calls. The magazine said that Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand were exempt from NSA surveillance but Germany was regarded as a country open to "spy attacks".

Ah, yes. The old now-your-phones-are-safe ploy. Works every time.

[David Guyatt]

Senators to investigate NSA role in GCHQ 'Optic Nerve' webcam spying

Three senators condemn UK spy agency's breathtaking lack of respect' over interception of Yahoo users' webcam images

• Spencer Ackerman in Washington
  
• theguardian.com, Friday 28 February 2014 17.14 GMT
  

US navy admiral Cecil Haney, left, and NSA director Keith Alexander testify before the Senate on Thursday. Photograph: Gary Cameron/Reuters

Three US senators are planning to investigate any role the National Security Agency played in its British partner's mass collection of Yahoo webcam images.

Reacting to the Guardian's revelation on Thursday that UK surveillance agency GCHQ swept up millions of Yahoo users' webcam chats, senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Martin Heinrich said in a joint statement that "any involvement of US agencies in the alleged activities reported today will need to be closely scrutinized".
The senators described the interception as a "breathtaking lack of respect for privacy and civil liberties".
On Friday, the Internet Association a trade body representing internet giants including Google, Amazon, eBay, Netflix, AOL and Twitter joined the chorus of condemnation, issuing a statement expressing alarm at the latest GCHQ revelations, and calling for reform.
According to documents provided to the Guardian by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the GCHQ program codenamed Optic Nerve fed screengrabs of webcam chats and associated metadata into NSA tools such as Xkeyscore.
NSA research, the documents indicate, also contributed to the creation of Optic Nerve, which attempted to use facial recognition technology to identify intelligence targets, particularly those using multiple anonymous internet IDs.
Neither NSA nor GCHQ addressed the Guardian's questions about US access to the images themselves. Outgoing NSA director Keith Alexanderwalked away from a reporter on Thursday who asked the army four-star general about the NSA's role in Optic Nerve.
Wyden, Udall and Heinrich are all members of the Senate intelligence committee. They said they were "extremely troubled" by Optic Nerve and planned to investigate it during the committee's announced omnibus inquiry into the scope of US surveillance activities revealed over the nine months since the Guardian and other news outlets began reporting the Snowden disclosures.
"We are extremely troubled by today's press report that a very large number of individuals including law-abiding Americans may have had private videos of themselves and their families intercepted and stored without any suspicion of wrongdoing. If this report is accurate it would show a breathtaking lack of respect for the privacy and civil liberties of law-abiding citizens," they said.
GCHQ's program, which uses data collected by cable taps as it transits the internet, does not filter out information from British or American webcams. Under UK law, there is no requirement for UK or US material to be removed from the agency's databases. Additional legal safeguards apply when analysts come to search the database for material on individuals located in the British Isles, though there are no UK laws banning searches for US citizens' data without a warrant.
The documents seen by the Guardian make clear the lengths to which GCHQ has gone to prevent sexually explicit material appearing in the analysts' searches. According to one document, it made up between 3% and 11% of the material stored under Optic Nerve.
The agency used face recognition software in an attempt to prevent explicit images clogging up search results but the documents make it clear that those tools were not always successful. Analysts were advised that if they were "uncomfortable about such material" they should not open the images. The guidance adds: "Retrieval and or reference to such material should be avoided."
GCHQ declined to comment on Optic Nerve but said all its programs operated in full accordance with UK law.
The three US senators said the revelation prompted new thinking about how the interconnectedness of global communications had "dramatically increased the likelihood of innocent Americans being swept up in intelligence collection nominally aimed at foreigners.
"It is becoming clearer and clearer that more needs to be done to ensure that foreign' intelligence collection does not intrude unnecessarily on the rights of law-abiding people or needlessly undermine the competitiveness of America's leading industries."
President Barack Obama said in a 17 January speech that foreigners ought to enjoy some degree of privacy from US surveillance, but has left the specifics undefined.
In a statement, the Internet Association's CEO Michael Beckerman said:

Today's revelations, about British intelligence practices, are alarming and reaffirm the need for greater transparency and reform of government surveillance.
Governments must immediately act to reform the practices and laws regulating surveillance and collection of Internet users' information. The most pressing Internet user privacy issue continues to concern governments' access to and use of electronic data. The Internet Association supports the Reform Government Surveillance principles and encourages legislation to limit governments' authority to collect users' information and increase transparency about government demands.

.

[Peter Lemkin]

Senators to investigate NSA role in GCHQ 'Optic Nerve' webcam spying

Three senators condemn UK spy agency's breathtaking lack of respect' over interception of Yahoo users' webcam images

• Spencer Ackerman in Washington
  
• theguardian.com, Friday 28 February 2014 17.14 GMT
  

US navy admiral Cecil Haney, left, and NSA director Keith Alexander testify before the Senate on Thursday. Photograph: Gary Cameron/Reuters

Three US senators are planning to investigate any role the National Security Agency played in its British partner's mass collection of Yahoo webcam images.

Reacting to the Guardian's revelation on Thursday that UK surveillance agency GCHQ swept up millions of Yahoo users' webcam chats, senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Martin Heinrich said in a joint statement that "any involvement of US agencies in the alleged activities reported today will need to be closely scrutinized".
The senators described the interception as a "breathtaking lack of respect for privacy and civil liberties".
On Friday, the Internet Association a trade body representing internet giants including Google, Amazon, eBay, Netflix, AOL and Twitter joined the chorus of condemnation, issuing a statement expressing alarm at the latest GCHQ revelations, and calling for reform.
According to documents provided to the Guardian by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the GCHQ program codenamed Optic Nerve fed screengrabs of webcam chats and associated metadata into NSA tools such as Xkeyscore.
NSA research, the documents indicate, also contributed to the creation of Optic Nerve, which attempted to use facial recognition technology to identify intelligence targets, particularly those using multiple anonymous internet IDs.
Neither NSA nor GCHQ addressed the Guardian's questions about US access to the images themselves. Outgoing NSA director Keith Alexanderwalked away from a reporter on Thursday who asked the army four-star general about the NSA's role in Optic Nerve.
Wyden, Udall and Heinrich are all members of the Senate intelligence committee. They said they were "extremely troubled" by Optic Nerve and planned to investigate it during the committee's announced omnibus inquiry into the scope of US surveillance activities revealed over the nine months since the Guardian and other news outlets began reporting the Snowden disclosures.
"We are extremely troubled by today's press report that a very large number of individuals including law-abiding Americans may have had private videos of themselves and their families intercepted and stored without any suspicion of wrongdoing. If this report is accurate it would show a breathtaking lack of respect for the privacy and civil liberties of law-abiding citizens," they said.
GCHQ's program, which uses data collected by cable taps as it transits the internet, does not filter out information from British or American webcams. Under UK law, there is no requirement for UK or US material to be removed from the agency's databases. Additional legal safeguards apply when analysts come to search the database for material on individuals located in the British Isles, though there are no UK laws banning searches for US citizens' data without a warrant.
The documents seen by the Guardian make clear the lengths to which GCHQ has gone to prevent sexually explicit material appearing in the analysts' searches. According to one document, it made up between 3% and 11% of the material stored under Optic Nerve.
The agency used face recognition software in an attempt to prevent explicit images clogging up search results but the documents make it clear that those tools were not always successful. Analysts were advised that if they were "uncomfortable about such material" they should not open the images. The guidance adds: "Retrieval and or reference to such material should be avoided."
GCHQ declined to comment on Optic Nerve but said all its programs operated in full accordance with UK law.
The three US senators said the revelation prompted new thinking about how the interconnectedness of global communications had "dramatically increased the likelihood of innocent Americans being swept up in intelligence collection nominally aimed at foreigners.
"It is becoming clearer and clearer that more needs to be done to ensure that foreign' intelligence collection does not intrude unnecessarily on the rights of law-abiding people or needlessly undermine the competitiveness of America's leading industries."
President Barack Obama said in a 17 January speech that foreigners ought to enjoy some degree of privacy from US surveillance, but has left the specifics undefined.
In a statement, the Internet Association's CEO Michael Beckerman said:

Today's revelations, about British intelligence practices, are alarming and reaffirm the need for greater transparency and reform of government surveillance.
Governments must immediately act to reform the practices and laws regulating surveillance and collection of Internet users' information. The most pressing Internet user privacy issue continues to concern governments' access to and use of electronic data. The Internet Association supports the Reform Government Surveillance principles and encourages legislation to limit governments' authority to collect users' information and increase transparency about government demands.

.

You don't believe it was just Yahoo video images, does anyone?!...it was ALL video images - and even ones when the webcam [you thought] was off!...and many computer microphones captured speech near the computer..and many keyboards captured all keystrokes....your web browsing habits were stored, your address book and emails red and recorded, those who oppose the system had their hard drives searched - this is a tip of the iceberg as big as Antarctica.

[Malcolm Pryce]

I agree Peter, 'tip of the ice berg'. If they have no scruples about this they have no scruples about anything. If Yahoo then almost certainly Skype, which is much bigger. And all those photos and videos we all took on our smart phones. Many of the commenters under the newspaper stories are still treating it as a joke. Ha ha the spooks are perving now. They just don't get it.

[David Guyatt]

You don't believe it was just Yahoo video images, does anyone?!...it was ALL video images - and even ones when the webcam [you thought] was off!...and many computer microphones captured speech near the computer..and many keyboards captured all keystrokes....your web browsing habits were stored, your address book and emails red and recorded, those who oppose the system had their hard drives searched - this is a tip of the iceberg as big as Antarctica.

I don't use my webcam. Ever.

But even so, months ago I did the equivalent of putting tinfoil on my head by putting some tape over the webcam peephole.

Ha!

The Grey aliens won't get me!!!

Now all I've got to figure out is how to switch off the internal microphone...

That'll keep the tall, spindly Venusians away too.

::beammeup::

[David Guyatt]

Senators to investigate NSA role in GCHQ 'Optic Nerve' webcam spying

Three senators condemn UK spy agency's breathtaking lack of respect' over interception of Yahoo users' webcam images

• Spencer Ackerman in Washington
  
• theguardian.com, Friday 28 February 2014 17.14 GMT
  

US navy admiral Cecil Haney, left, and NSA director Keith Alexander testify before the Senate on Thursday. Photograph: Gary Cameron/Reuters

Three US senators are planning to investigate any role the National Security Agency played in its British partner's mass collection of Yahoo webcam images.

Reacting to the Guardian's revelation on Thursday that UK surveillance agency GCHQ swept up millions of Yahoo users' webcam chats, senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Martin Heinrich said in a joint statement that "any involvement of US agencies in the alleged activities reported today will need to be closely scrutinized".
The senators described the interception as a "breathtaking lack of respect for privacy and civil liberties".
On Friday, the Internet Association a trade body representing internet giants including Google, Amazon, eBay, Netflix, AOL and Twitter joined the chorus of condemnation, issuing a statement expressing alarm at the latest GCHQ revelations, and calling for reform.
According to documents provided to the Guardian by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the GCHQ program codenamed Optic Nerve fed screengrabs of webcam chats and associated metadata into NSA tools such as Xkeyscore.
NSA research, the documents indicate, also contributed to the creation of Optic Nerve, which attempted to use facial recognition technology to identify intelligence targets, particularly those using multiple anonymous internet IDs.
Neither NSA nor GCHQ addressed the Guardian's questions about US access to the images themselves. Outgoing NSA director Keith Alexanderwalked away from a reporter on Thursday who asked the army four-star general about the NSA's role in Optic Nerve.
Wyden, Udall and Heinrich are all members of the Senate intelligence committee. They said they were "extremely troubled" by Optic Nerve and planned to investigate it during the committee's announced omnibus inquiry into the scope of US surveillance activities revealed over the nine months since the Guardian and other news outlets began reporting the Snowden disclosures.
"We are extremely troubled by today's press report that a very large number of individuals including law-abiding Americans may have had private videos of themselves and their families intercepted and stored without any suspicion of wrongdoing. If this report is accurate it would show a breathtaking lack of respect for the privacy and civil liberties of law-abiding citizens," they said.
GCHQ's program, which uses data collected by cable taps as it transits the internet, does not filter out information from British or American webcams. Under UK law, there is no requirement for UK or US material to be removed from the agency's databases. Additional legal safeguards apply when analysts come to search the database for material on individuals located in the British Isles, though there are no UK laws banning searches for US citizens' data without a warrant.
The documents seen by the Guardian make clear the lengths to which GCHQ has gone to prevent sexually explicit material appearing in the analysts' searches. According to one document, it made up between 3% and 11% of the material stored under Optic Nerve.
The agency used face recognition software in an attempt to prevent explicit images clogging up search results but the documents make it clear that those tools were not always successful. Analysts were advised that if they were "uncomfortable about such material" they should not open the images. The guidance adds: "Retrieval and or reference to such material should be avoided."
GCHQ declined to comment on Optic Nerve but said all its programs operated in full accordance with UK law.
The three US senators said the revelation prompted new thinking about how the interconnectedness of global communications had "dramatically increased the likelihood of innocent Americans being swept up in intelligence collection nominally aimed at foreigners.
"It is becoming clearer and clearer that more needs to be done to ensure that foreign' intelligence collection does not intrude unnecessarily on the rights of law-abiding people or needlessly undermine the competitiveness of America's leading industries."
President Barack Obama said in a 17 January speech that foreigners ought to enjoy some degree of privacy from US surveillance, but has left the specifics undefined.
In a statement, the Internet Association's CEO Michael Beckerman said:

Today's revelations, about British intelligence practices, are alarming and reaffirm the need for greater transparency and reform of government surveillance.
Governments must immediately act to reform the practices and laws regulating surveillance and collection of Internet users' information. The most pressing Internet user privacy issue continues to concern governments' access to and use of electronic data. The Internet Association supports the Reform Government Surveillance principles and encourages legislation to limit governments' authority to collect users' information and increase transparency about government demands.

.

Come on Rigby! Post your knicker sniffing GCHQ thoughts!!

::laughingdog::

[Paul Rigby]

A moving email-plea from Sir Herbert Tooth, the legendarily outspoken Tory grandee & CEO of the South East Asian Sex Tool Corporation Inc, has today gone viral after being leaked by unidentified West Country sources.

Tooth's plea was addressed, it should be noted, presumably in a fit of absent-mindedness, to Sir Reginald Pike-Darkness, his fellow-Old Harrovian (and former fag), in the mistaken belief that the latter remained a figure of influence at the Etonian court of Saints David and Gideon. In fact, Pike-Darkness' eminence grise role during the Major years was abruptly terminated following his arrest at Heathrow airport while in possession of what he mistakenly believed were "healing powders with an aphrodisiac quality". A Customs Official subsequently commented that the substance in question would unquestionably "add Life" to any social gathering.

Dear Reggie,

I have been violated & your urgent assistance is solicited.

I learned of this appalling case of accurate identification from an inebriated Orangeman, who sidled up to my faithful amanuensis, Ms. Lola Ferrari, in the course of Elton John's tasteful anti-Sochi fund-raiser last Saturday the one in support of Russkie lesbos and sundry other unlikely current heroes of the FO & Foggy Bottom - to deliver himself of an indecent proposal, a terrible revelation, and technicolour yawn, all in surprisingly rapid succession.

According to the lambeg-beater, he was returning to Stormont-on-the-Thames after a secondment to the electronic knicker-sniffers in Cheltenham, where he found himself burnishing his highly prized computer skills by watching endless hours of Yahoo Webcam footage. If the eternally fragrant Ms. F. didn't play ball, he intimated shortly before expiring, face down, in the fairy cakes, the highlights of your correspondent's weekly transatlantic broadcasts to Ms. Alabama 1964 would be leaked to a malleable blogger.

Intrigued, my favourite typist inquired, most demurely, what it was her venerable employer was supposed to have done. Ask him about his alter-ego, "Major Stroker," came the somewhat cryptic reply. The intrepid Ferrari pressed again. Yes, but what's he supposed to have actually done? "Waved his Old Man at a geriatric sleeping peacefully in her rest home," came the reply.

I shan't dignify this vile farrago with a detailed exposition of the facts, save to note that Emmy-Lou Wartsheimer was Ms. Oklahoma in 1965; does not reside in any home save her own; remains in admirably good trim, thanks, in large measure, to her regular infusions of foetal tissue & botox; and that my nom-de-porn is, in fact, Lieutenant Stroker, an error so major as to require the squiffy securocrat's instant dismissal. If an eminent Englishman cannot enjoy a rank of choice within the walls of his own castle, things have come to a pretty pass.

More seriously still, isn't the whole point of the spy business is to keep the real enemy within under the gimlet-eye of suitable public schoolmen? You know, trade unionists, social workers, university professors, that sort of riff-raff. Have the knicker-sniffers lost all sense of decency, direction & purpose?

I want the footage back, uncopied, of course, but I may need something to trade with. Can you give your contacts at the Charlatans a tinkle and extract some juicy morsels on a senior knicker-sniffer or two? That Prime chap used to work there, so it's not as if they don't have form. A sheep-worrier would be nice, a Saville even better. Do your worst, Reggie, and dig for victory! The share price of SEASTC, in which you retain a significant stake, I remind you, depends on upon it.

Tooth

[Paul Rigby]

Dear Reggie,

More seriously still, isn't the whole point of the spy business is to keep the real enemy within under the gimlet-eye of suitable public schoolmen? You know, trade unionists, social workers, university professors, that sort of riff-raff. Have the knicker-sniffers lost all sense of decency, direction & purpose?

Tooth

To put matters slightly more conventionally...

Lenin Nightingale

RINF Alternative News

http://rinf.com/alt-news/latest-news/gch...principle/

The detail of how modern government agencies spy on people is not important, for such detail only informs of the latest technology involved. Spying is a constant of history. Every attempt of British workers to combine' in the early 19th. century resulted in their organisations being infiltrated by spies, their communications being intercepted; their leaders' reputations being blackened. Nothing has changed, other than the technical capacity of spy agencies.

So, when NBC News exclusively' obtains documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden, which report that the Uk's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has a dirty tricks unit called Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), which works closely with Americas National Security Agency (NSA), it should not surprise.

Likewise, what is surprising about GCHQ's JTRIG manual?, The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations', which is the textbook of GCHQ's Human Science Operations Cell', which tracks online human intelligence', and implements strategic influence and disruption'. In short, GCHQ uses an analytical program called XKEYSCORE that indexes email addresses, file names, IP addresses, cookies, phone numbers and metadata. They know which websites you visit, just as they knew who visited the radical leaders of workers' movements in the 19th. century.

Should GCHQ's false flag' operations cause suprise?, by which GCHQ posts lies on the internet about whoever it deems a threat, and, under countless pseudonyms, posts in forums and blogs so as to influence discussion. It should also not surprise that GCHQ uses a computer virus Ambassador's Reception' in a variety of different areas', which it describes as very effective'. The virus can delete all emails, encrypt all files, and make the screen shake'. It can can also block a user from logging on to their computer.

The point is this - it would be remarkable if GCHQ did not employ such tactics, for they are only developments in the technology of control, spawned of the internet age, added to modern concepts of psychological manipulation. The underlying theme is constant governments have always used a perceived threat of revolution or terrorism as fear cards used to justify spying and control. The vast majority of information collected by the British government in the 19th. century was never intended to be used, its wider purpose was (and is) to act as a sword of Damocles' a threat hanging over people. The intimidated in any era are less likely to be critical of government.

The ruling class have always ruled by fear. The main reason for allowing people to know that they are being spied on is to induce fear. When is a leak' not a leak'? when it is authorised by government. There is little point in GCHQ's OPTIC NERVE program capturing millions of pics from Yahoo! Messenger webcams up to 11% of which contained undesirable nudity' if webcam performers' do not know about it. Similarly, XKEYSCORE and Ambassador's Reception' have no Damocles' value if not known.

When NBC News exclusively' obtains documents, it should be asked, who, then, are they? NBC News is owned by NBC Universal, which is owned by the cable company Comcast, whose major shareholders include large investment trusts. Comcast generally supports Obama, and its leadership has strong ties to his administration. First Lady Michelle Obama has made several cameo appearances (not via webcam) on NBC shows.

It is what you are not told that is important.