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Tag: NSA

  • Yahoo Threatened With $250K A Day In Fines For Not Releasing User Data

    Court documents were released on Thursday, showing that the U.S. government threatened Yahoo with fines of $250,000 a day in 2008 if it didn’t comply with demands to provide communications from its users. The documents are very significant because they highlight how the government has made companies participate in the NSA’s infamous PRISM surveillance program.

    Over 1,500 documents relating to Yahoo’s 2007-2008 challenge to the the expansion of U.S. surveillance laws, which were previously secret, were released.

    In ’07, the government amended a law to demand user info from online services, and Yahoo refused to comply, viewing it as unconstitutional. Yahoo challenged (and appealed), but was unsuccessful.

    “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) upheld the predecessor to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The Court ordered us to give the U.S. Government the user data it sought in the matter,” explains Yahoo General Counsel Ron Bell. “The FISC and the FISC-R are ‘secret’ courts that oversee requests by the U.S. Government for surveillance orders and other types of legal process in national security investigations. The Court’s hearings and records are closed to the public and typically classified. For example, our role in the 2007-2008 lawsuit remained classified until 2013. In spite of this, we fought to declassify and to share the findings from the case.”

    “A decision to open FISC or FISC-R records to the public is extremely rare,” he adds. “Now that the FISC-R has agreed to unseal the proceedings at our request, we are working to make these documents available. (NOTE: There is no FISC-R public docket, so we are in the process of making the complete 1500 pages of information available. We will update this Tumblr with the link to those documents as soon as they are ready.)”

    Yahoo lists the following as the key takeaways from the documents:

  • An expanded version of the FISC-R opinion in the case, originally released in 2008 in a more redacted form.
  • The release of the never-before-seen 2008 FISC opinion that we challenged on appeal.
  • The parties’ briefs, including some of the lower court briefings in the appendices.
  • An Ex-Parte Appendix of classified filings.
  • A partially redacted certification filed with the FISC, as well as a mostly unredacted directive that Yahoo received.

    • While there is a ton of new information about all of this available, there are still classified documents. Yahoo says it’s still pushing to have other materials released.

    Image via Yahoo

  • Edward Snowden Granted More Time in Russia

    Edward Snowden is likely staying in Russia for the foreseeable future.

    The 31-year-old former NSA analyst, who famously leaked (and continues to leak) documents and anecdotes about the US government’s massive surveillance initiative, has been granted a three-year residence permit in Russia, according to the AFP.

    Shortly after The Guardian published leaked documents obtained by Snowden during his stint as a contractor with the National Security Agency, Snowden found himself in a Russian airport, awaiting asylum. He had applied to over a dozen countries, but Russia was the only one to grant his request. In August, Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia – meaning that he had a year to live freely in the country.

    Now, a year has passed, and Snowden has been given extra time. The new residence permit will allow Snowden to move “about freely and travel abroad,” according to his lawyer. “In the future Edward will have to decide whether to continue to live in Russia and become a citizen or to return to the United States,” he said.

    Though Snowden is technically lying low in Russia, he is still influencing national debate (and sparking national outrage) with his frequent revelations about the NSA and its surveillance overreach. Most recently, in an interview with The Guardian, Snowden revealed that the NSA was pretty much getting off on people’s sexts.

    As far as coming home, Snowden is clearly hesitant as long as the US government considers him an outlaw.

    “I’m not going to give myself a parade…But neither am I going to walk into a jail cell and serve as a bad example for other people in government who see something happening…and think they need to say something about it,” Snowden said in an interview a couple of months ago.

    And a jail cell is likely what he’d find if he stepped foot in the US. He currently faces charges of ‘Theft of Government Property’, ‘Unauthorized Communications on National Defense Information’ and ‘Willful Communication of Classified Information to an Unauthorized Person’. Though the American public is somewhat undecided on whether Snowden is a patriot or a traitor, the US government has no such ambiguity in its position.

    Image via The Guardian, YouTube screenshot

  • The NSA Is Getting Off on Your Sexts, Says Snowden

    According to NSA leaker and current resident of Russia Edward Snowden, the lovely folks at the NSA are intercepting your naked selfies and passing them around the office like adolescent boys – you know, because of course they are.

    Snowden recently sat down to talk to The Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger in Russia, and a sneak peek of the conversation just went up (the full interview will be released on Friday). In it, Snowden talks about claims that he’s a Russian spy, his daily life in the country, and his future. He also dropped this little nugget:

    The reality of working in the intelligence community is that you see thing that are deeply troubling – all the time. And it’s not just one person, it’s many of them.

    You’ve got young enlisted guys, 18 to 22 years old, they’ve suddenly been thrust into a position of extraordinary responsibility where they now have access to all of your private records. Now, in the course of their daily work, they stumble across something that is completely unrelated to their work in any sort of necessary sense.

    For example, an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising situation but they’re extremely attractive. So what do they do? They turn around in their chair and they show their coworker. And their coworker says ‘oh hey, that’s great – send that to Bill down the way.’

    And then Bill sends it to George, and George sends it to Tom, and sooner or later this person’s whole life has been seen by all of these other people.

    It’s never reported, nobody ever knows about it because the auditing of these systems is incredibly weak. The fact that your private images, records of your private life, records of your intimate moments, have been taken from your private communications from the intended recipient and given to the government without any specific authorization, without any specific need, is itself a violation of your rights.

    When asked if he saw numerous instances of this, Snowden said that it was “routine enough.”

    “Depending on the company you keep, it could be more or less frequent. But these are seen as sort of the fringe benefits of these positions.”

    If you don’t believe Snowden, well then you don’t believe Snowden. If you do believe him, however, this is both deeply distressing and completely unsurprising.

    As for Snowden himself, he says that he’s probably going to stay holed up in Russia for the foreseeable future.

    “You know, I’m much happier here in Russia than I would be facing an unfair trial in which I can’t even present a public interest defense to a jury of my peers. We’ve asked the government again and again to provide a fair trial and they’ve declined, and I feel very fortunate to have received asylum.”

  • Angela Merkel Calls U.S. Spying Allegation ‘Serious’

    Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel said in a news conference in Beijing Monday that if allegations that a German man had been working as a double agent for the U.S. are true, “it would be a serious case.”

    According to intelligence sources, a 31-year-old employee of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency admitted to slipping classified documents to a U.S. contact. The White House and State Department have yet to comment on the matter, and Merkel stated that “if the allegations are true, it would be for me a clear contradiction as to what I consider to be trusting cooperation between agencies and partners.”

    Alleged information passed includes Germany’s parliamentary committee investigation into data former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden dredged up suggesting that the U.S. National Security Agency initiated a major surveillance in Germany, including tapping Merkel’s phone.

    German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier commented, “We haven’t finished clearing this up yet. But if suspicions are confirmed that American secret services were involved, it will become a political issue and we can’t just get back to business as usual.”

    Merkel was in China to oversee signing of agreements involving Airbus Group NV’s helicopter division selling 100 aircraft to Chinese companies, and warned the Chinese government about the growing threat of cyber attacks and industrial espionage.

    “Germany is against that (industrial espionage) regardless of where it comes from,” Merkel said, adding, “We have a duty as the state to protect our economy. We are for the protection of intellectual property.”

    Some espionage-related humor:

    Meanwhile, Edward Snowden’s lawyer in Germany, Wolfgang Kaleck, said he hoped the latest allegations might eventually help change Germany’s stance on his client, noting that Europe had profited from his information but were not prepared to offer him asylum. Snowden remains stranded in Russia.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Edward Snowden On Vindication: I Can Sleep At Night

    Edward Snowden remains a highly divisive figure in the American political and social landscape following his decision to leak thousands of highly classified documents to the international press in June of 2013.

    Some argue that Snowden’s actions exposed the dangerous levels of overreach the United States government—a government that Snowden demonstrated is spying on its own citizens—has engaged in following the September 11th attacks.

    Others feel that the violations committed by Snowden are treasonous and that he has caused far more harm than good. Some also fear Snowden’s leak might even reveal detailed plans to respond to authentic terrorist threats.

    Following his actions, Snowden remains a fugitive from the American justice system.

    He is in exile in Russia (for now) to avoid returning to the United States to face charges that could land him behind bars for decades.

    Snowden chose to speak out in an exclusive interview with Brian Williams for the program NBC Nightly News. It marked his first American interview.

    The exiled fugitive took special precautions for the sit-down.

    Because he is living in a secret location, Snowden chose to meet Williams and NBC crew at the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski located in central Moscow.

    During the five hour interview process, Snowden offered up explanations for his actions.

    In Snowden’s mind, revealing the extent to which the NSA is “overreaching” was an act that allows him “to sleep at night”. Snowden considers himself a patriot rather than a “coward”, as was the accusation leveled by Secretary of State John Kerry.

    Said Snowden, “Sometimes to do the right thing, you have to break a law. And the key there is in terms of civil disobedience.”

    While there are those who demand that he turn himself in and face the consequences of his actions, Snowden does not think a lengthy jail sentence would set any kind of example for future whistle blowers.

    “I’m [not] going to give myself a parade,” Snowden said. “But neither am I going to walk into a jail cell [and] serve as a bad example for other people in government who see something happening… and think they need to say something about it.”

    Apparently there are ongoing talks between Snowden and American officials to negotiate what it would take for him to return the United States.

    This interview is the closest thing to a “case” he has been able to plead with the American public regarding what he did.

    A major reason Snowden remains abroad is because he feels that he would not be granted a fair trial in American courts.

    The full interview can be seen in the video below.

    Image via YouTube

  • Post Snowden, Tech Companies Are Much More Transparent and Protective of User Privacy

    In May of 2013, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published their third-ever “Who Has Your Back” report, which looks at major tech companies and how they stack up when it comes to protecting user data and privacy. In the six criteria the EFF uses to judge each company, only two received perfect six-star ratings. Many top companies, like Apple and Yahoo, only received one measly star out of six. It was clear that many of the companies people trust with their most personal information were dropping the ball when it came to protecting it from prying eyes, as well as letting users know when the government came a-pryin’.

    Then something big happened. About a month after that report hit the internet, a journalist named Glenn Greenwald published documents given to him by one Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the NSA. The documents detailed a massive surveillance initiative that saw the U.S. government collecting troves of data on American citizens (and some abroad), and even suggested that some of the same tech companies in the EFF’s report had been a party to the spying.

    These revelations, along with the many that came after, caused quite the stir and ignited a heated debate over privacy, data security, government overreach, and national safety interests. People became more aware of the potential for companies to play fast and loose with their personal data, and companies were forced to shift policies in order to regain users’ trust.

    Or at least that’s the picture that the EFF’s new Who Has Your Back report is painting.

    In the 2014 report, nine companies received perfect six-star ratings when it comes to protecting user privacy: Apple, Credo Mobile, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Sonic.net, Twitter, and Yahoo. Last year, both Apple and Yahoo only received one star, Facebook had received three, and Google had five. The only two companies that had perfect ratings in 2013 both kept their perfect scores this year: Sonic.net and Twitter.

    So, what are the stars for? The EFF’s criteria consists of six things: Does the company require a warrant for content; Does the company tell users about government data requests; Does the company publish a transparency report? Does the company publish law enforcement guidelines; Does the company fight for users’ rights in the courts; and Does the company fight for users’ privacy rights in Congress.

    For the more visually inclined, here’s a comparison of 2013 and 2014’s star charts. It’s clear to see that there is significantly more gold in 2014.

    2013

    2014

    For the first time in the history of the report, all companies are at least doing one thing to protect user privacy. The big blemishes on 2014’s list are major telecoms AT&T and Comcast (no surprises there), Amazon.com, and newcomer Snapchat–who the EFF urges to step it up.

    “Snapchat stands out in this report: added for the first time this year, it earns recognition in only one category, publishing law enforcement guidelines. This is particularly troubling because Snapchat collects extremely sensitive user data, including potentially compromising photographs of users. Given the large number of users and nonusers whose photos end up on Snapchat, Snapchat should publicly commit to requiring a warrant before turning over the content of its users’ communications to law enforcement. We urge them to change course,” they say.

    To answer the question of why the big change (for most major companies at least), the EFF gives credit to the Edward Snowden leaks, which they say prompted “significant policy reform” from major tech companies.

    “These changes in policy were likely a reaction to the releases of the last year, which repeatedly pointed to a close relationship between tech companies and the National Security Agency. Tech companies have had to work to regain the trust of users concerned that the US government was accessing data they stored in the cloud. This seems to be one of the legacies of the Snowden disclosures: the new transparency around mass surveillance has prompted significant policy reforms by major tech companies.”

    And it’s really been transparency that’s had the most focus in the post-Snowden era. Many companies saw the publishing of a data request transparency report as a way to say “look, we’re not trying to hide anything from you.” As the EFF notes, even major ISPs like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon now publish transparency reports.

    You can check out the EFF’s incredibly detailed report of each company featured on the list here.

    Images via EFF

  • Edward Snowden Story Coming to Silver Screen as Sony Buys Rights to New Glenn Greenwald Book

    One of the most compelling, and still unfolding stories in years will hit the silver screen in the coming years, as reporter Glenn Greenwald’s just-published book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U. S. Surveillance State, has been picked up by Sony Pictures.

    “Edward Snowden’s explosive revelations have raised important questions about the role of government in protecting its citizens and the balance between national security and personal freedom. We are extremely proud that Michael, Barbara and Glenn chose Sony to bring this riveting story to the big screen, and believe that Glenn’s account of this incredible international event will make for a gripping and unforgettable film,” said Doug Belgrad, President of Columbia Pictures.

    It’s been nearly a year since Greenwald wrote his first story on the NSA’s secret spying initiatives, with the help of leaked documents from former contractor Edward Snowden. Since then, Snowden documents continue to be released, revealing more and more information on the extent of the surveillance state in the U.S. and abroad and sparking a national dialogue on the issue.

    His book, No Place to Hide, focuses on not only the true story behind the Snowden leaks, but also Greenwald’s analysis on the implications of the revelations. It was only released worldwide on Tuesday, and Sony has already announced its intentions to turn it into a film.

    “I’m very happy to be working with Amy Pascal, Doug Belgrad, and the team at Sony Pictures Entertainment who have a successful track record of making thoughtful and nuanced true-life stories that audiences want to see. Growing up, I was heavily influenced by political films, and am excited about the opportunity to be part of a political film that will resonate with today’s moviegoers,” said Greenwald.

    According to the New York Times, it took a while for the film to land with Sony Pictures, as many potential buyers were hesitant to take on such a hot-button topic, especially one where the story is far from over. Snowden is still living in Russia, and is wanted by the U.S. government.

    On Tuesday, Greenwald also released over 100 new pages of Snowden documents.

    Last year, Greenwald announced that he would be leaving The Guardian. His new venture, The Intercept, is now live.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Obama’s NSA Overhaul: Worth a Damn?

    After an outpouring of outrage from Americans about their loss of privacy, President Obama is calling on the NSA to change how it does business. The question is, “Will this make any real difference?”

    At the heart of most of the debate about the NSA’s bulk phone data collection practices is something called “metadata”. Essentially, this is information commonly collected by phone companies for billing and usage purposes. These can include:

    – incoming and outgoing telephone numbers for each call
    – codes that identify individual phones
    – the time and duration of the call

    We learned from Edward Snowden’s leaks that the NSA has been collecting and storing this information on every American since 9/11.

    According to Time Magazine, President Obama’s call for NSA “overhaul” basically puts an extra step between the NSA and that data from the phone companies. The data is still there, as it always was, but now requires a court order to retrieve. There is an exception made for cases of national emergency.

    “This ensures that government is not in possession of that bulk data,” Obama said. “I recognize that people were concerned about what might happen in the future with that bulk data. This proposal that’s been presented to me would eliminate that concern.”

    Some of the first questions that this brings up is: What constitutes a “national emergency”? Could it be virtually anything the NSA is investigating, given that their raison d’être is, by definition, “national security”? And how open-ended can their requests be? Under what circumstances might a court deny them access to the records they request? Any at all?

    Obama said the concern was that the government was “in possession of that bulk data.” So, is the answer to simply leave the data off-site, but easily accessible at whim?

    But even these nit-picking questions pale when we start asking: What about the other, scarier programs like RETRO, which we reported on here recently. The RETRO program records everything, not just metadata. The NSA can listen to any phone call. And not just in real-time. They have a 30-day buffer of calls waiting to be listened to.

    When faced with programs like this, isn’t quibbling over FISA Court-style permissions really just dickering around the edges of the problem? When someone has a key to your house, and is able to walk in and take whatever they like, you don’t argue about whether they can park along the curb while they are doing it.

    Does this really “eliminate that concern?”

    Image via YouTube

  • Stingray: Local Cops Track Cell Phones Like NSA

    According to the Associated Press, police are able to track your cell phone with a device called Stingray. The mechanism is a suitcase-sized tool manufactured by the Harris Corporation that mimics a cell phone tower.

    There is not much known about the device, but back in 2011 the city of Miami inadvertently published the price and description of a unit in some other budget items they posted online. The info was removed, but not before it was downloaded by the folks at PublicIntelligence.net [PDF].

    That price list describes the Stingray as a “4-channel multi-transmit interrogation and direction-finding transportable unit.”

    The price for the base model Stingray II was $148,000. There are several software packages that are also available that go with the unit. Those cost around $22,000 each. There is one software package that is restricted to only Federal “customers” that costs $50,000. Other accessories are listed, including cables for around $200, a computer mouse for $50, a 20-foot antenna mast for $2,990, and a choice of regular and “ruggedized” laptops to run it all with.

    It is not known if the City of Miami purchased the Stingray system, but if they did, they can now track cell phone users.

    In one court case, a Federal agency did acknowledge that the Stingray can affect the cell phone functions of innocent civilians, who are not under investigation, in the area in which it is being used.

    Not much detail is known. What can be divined is that the unit tricks a cell phone into thinking that it is a cell tower. The cell phone then transmits all the usual info to the unit, allowing police to track the phone. This is simpler than triangulation of tower signal. Anyone who has been stuck with a phone that does not have GPS, but tries to approximate it with cell tower triangulation (ahem – Blackberry Curve), can tell you that triangulation only gets you so far.

    But what if this Stingray can also catch data, not just voice? Location services info from phones to apps is common. If the Stingray can intercept what your phone is sending to, say, Facebook (which uses that info for “check-ins”), then police can follow you within 7.8 meters of where you stand (according to GPS.gov).

    Much other information about the Stingray unit is kept confidential. Federal and local law enforcement is required by Harris Corp. to sign non-disclosure agreements about its capabilities. Police records that mention it are often redacted when they are made public. Lots of people question the wisdom – and legality – of a corporate NDA superseding American rights and transparency laws.

    Image via Harris Corp.

  • Jimmy Carter Thwarts NSA, Uses Post Office

    Jimmy Carter Thwarts NSA, Uses Post Office

    Jimmy Carter, in an interview for NBC’s Meet the Press, says he uses snail mail when communicating with foreign leaders. He is pretty sure that the NSA is spying on him, a fear that is not unfounded, according to Fox News.

    “I have felt that my own communications are probably monitored,” the former Democratic president said. “And when I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately, I type or write the letter myself, put it in the post office and mail it, because I believe if I send an email, it will be monitored.”

    Why the 89-year-old former president and founder of The Carter Center would need to be monitored, I don’t know, but the actions taken by the Obama administration and the NSA just don’t sit well with him. He said the practice of spying on American citizens’ emails, internet use, and cell phone calls has been “extremely liberalized and I think abused by our own intelligence agencies.”

    He also admitted that Mr. Obama didn’t bother to consult him when dealing with Russian President Vladmir Putin, even though he has direct experience which could have been helpful and has been consulted by former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan on dealing with “unsavory characters”.

    In fact, in 1980 Carter boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow because Russia had just invaded Afghanistan. But he feels that he knows the reason, and because of its sensitive nature, he understands Obama’s reluctance to consult him, according to NBC.

    He said,“I think the problem was that — in dealing with the issue of peace in between Israel and Egypt — the Carter Center has taken a very strong and public position of equal treatment between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And I think this was a sensitive area in which the president didn’t want to be involved.”

    Image Via Wikimedia Commons

  • NSA MYSTIC Can Listen To Any Call, Anywhere

    Contrary to what many news outlets have been saying, and many experts have been assuring Americans of, the National Security Agency does indeed have the ability to pull up the entire audio of your phone calls and listen to them whenever they please.

    When news of the MYSTIC and RETRO programs first broke, thanks to the leaks of Edward Snowden, experts told the American people that all the NSA had on anyone was “metadata”. the particulars of when, where, and to whom calls were placed.

    But a report published this week in the Washington Post shows that the NSA has far greater spying capability than that.

    The report describes a system that can record 100% of a country’s phone calls, then reach “into the past” to listen to any phone call they choose, even if it was something that they had passed by in earlier investigations.

    The tool is a part of the MYSTIC program and goes by the name RETRO. According to the Post report, it became operational in 2011 and targeted one country as an initial capability test. At the request of the U.S. government, the Post did not reveal which country that was.

    The report further reveals that the material collected by the program is “without discriminants”, that is to say, it does not target particular persons. Rather it “vacuums up” all the calls in a given country, putting them into what is currently described as a rolling 30-day buffer, giving the U.S. a month to go back and listen to whatever they want to.

    The ability of the U.S. to potentially listen in on any conversation it wants to, anywhere in the world, has raised alarms across the globe. It is an issue that both political parties in the U.S. are concerned about, as well as foreign governments that are concerned that this ultimate spying skill gives the U.S. the ability to corner almost any concern that normally would have been open to diplomatic channels. What good is it to negotiate with someone who already knows everything you know?

    President Obama has signed executive orders, ostensibly limiting what the NSA can collect and do with what it collects. But these measures are cold comfort to people who see the revelations brought by Snowden’s leaks as the beginning of a new era in which no one can be trusted and everyone is being watched.

    Image via YouTube

  • ‘Enemies of the Internet’ List Now Features US Agency for the First Time

    Operating behind its “wall of secrecy,” the National Security Agency has been put on one watchdog’s list of ‘Enemies of the Internet.’

    “Identifying government units or agencies rather than entire governments as Enemies of the Internet allows us to draw attention to the schizophrenic attitude towards online freedoms that prevails in in some countries. Three of the government bodies designated by Reporters Without Borders as Enemies of the Internet are located in democracies that have traditionally claimed to respect fundamental freedoms: the Centre for Development of Telematics in India, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in the United Kingdom, and the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States,” says the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.

    For the first time, the group’s 2014 list of Internet Enemies includes a United States agency.

    The group notes the efforts undertook by NSA contractor Edward Snowden in uncovering and exposing the massive scale of the surveillance state in the United States, and abroad.

    “The mass surveillance methods employed in these three countries, many of them exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, are all the more intolerable because they will be used and indeed are already being used by authoritarians countries such as Iran, China, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to justify their own violations of freedom of information. How will so-called democratic countries will able to press for the protection of journalists if they adopt the very practices they are criticizing authoritarian regimes for?” says the group.

    The US joins the UAE, Cuba, Iran, Bahrain, Belarus, Pakistan, Vietnam, Turkmenistan, Sudan, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Uzbekistan, India, China, Ethiopia, and North Korea on the list. You can check out RWB’s entire report here.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Mark Zuckerberg Called Obama to Express Frustration ‘Over the Damage the Government Is Creating for Our Future’

    Earlier this week, reports emerged that said the NSA posed as Facebook to infect computers with malware. The revelation came from none other than American fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden, who claimed that the security agency had “tricked users computers into thinking that they were accessing real Facebook servers. Once the user had been fooled, the NSA hacked into the user’s computer and extracted data from their hard drive,” according to the LA Times.

    I guess that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg felt that the time was right to once again call for increased government transparency, a free internet, and security for all.

    in a post this afternoon, Zuckerberg says that he is “confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the US government.” He doesn’t mention these reports specifically, as the post expresses a general concern about the U.S. government’s impact on a free, open, transparent, and secure internet. He says that trust in the internet is more important than ever.

    “The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they’re doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst,” says Zuckerberg in the post. “I’ve called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.”

    Post by Mark Zuckerberg.

    When the whole Edward Snowden NSA surveillance story broke last summer, Facebook was one of the first companies to vehemently deny any involvement. At the time, they also called for more data transparency–specifically involving national security data requests.

    “We strongly encourage all governments to be much more transparent about all programs aimed at keeping the public safe. It’s the only way to protect everyone’s civil liberties and create the safe and free society we all want over the long term,” said Zuckerberg.

    Image via Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

  • President Obama Interviewed On ‘Between Two Ferns’

    Okay.

    Between Two Ferns is a deadpan internet comedy series hosted on video website Funny or Die starring comedian Zach Galifianakis as a talk show host who invites various celebrities to sit down (literally, between two ferns) for an interview on a set that resembles something out of 90’s public-access television.

    *Phew*

    If you’re familiar with The Hangover star whose last name is too complicated to type and causes anxiety levels to sky rocket, you’ll find that he’s just as awkward as he’s always been by making his guests uncomfortable.

    Filmed two weeks ago and shortly released after 7:00 AM EST on Tuesday, President Barack Obama appeared on the hot seat, plugging his Affordable Care Act, urging young people to sign up for health insurance before March 31st. If you’re like Galifianakis and “don’t have a computer”, you can get coverage by calling by telephone. If you’re without a phone (like Galifianakis) and wary of “staying off the grid” for the sake of not wanting the President’s “people looking at” your texts, you can apply for healthcare in person.

    “Have you heard of the Affordable Care Act?” Obama asked.

    “Oh yeah, that thing that doesn’t work,” Galifianakis chimed in, later unveiling to Obama his various spider bites – the President assured that his preexisting condition wouldn’t  stop him from being covered.

    Aside from the President’s plug, Galifianakis dished out questions concerning “Ambassador Rodman” and what to do with “North Ikea”, asking if Hulk Hogan would be sent to Syria, the President’s birth certificate, which team he rooted for in the Winter Olympics, and suggesting that he make same-sex divorce illegal.

    Typically, Galifianakis would take jabs at his guest, showing complete disinterest as well as hurling passive aggressive insults and other various forms of mockery.

    Mixing up food with country, he asked Obama: “In 2013 you pardoned the turkey. What do you have planned for 2014?”

    Obama, vigilant in the skit, fired back at each remark his host made: “We’ll probably pardon another turkey. We do that every Thanksgiving. Was that depressing to you? Seeing uh.. uh..  one turkey kinda taken outta circulation a turkey you couldn’t eat?”

    Image via YouTube

  • Edward Snowden Appears At SXSW; Calls For Better Online Security Measures

    In a rare public appearance, fugitive and National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden addressed the audience of the SXSW conference regarding Internet privacy and surveillance.

    The conference, which was held on Monday in Austin, Texas, put the controversial U.S. intelligence leaker through via Google Hangouts all the way from Russia, where Snowden currently resides. The U.S. Constitution backdrop gave a touch of patriotism to his emphatic speech, which discussed a variety of topics that revolved around the importance of encryption software in people’s private communications.

    Declaring that the NSA was “setting fire to the future of the Internet”, Snowden urged the techie-dominated audience to be more vigilant in “fighting the fire”. Snowden also called for the proactive participation of public advocates from the tech community who will make sure that mass surveillance problems are acknowledged and resolved accordingly.

    The annual event, which lasted an hour, was hosted by Snowden’s lawyer and director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, Ben Wizner. It also featured the comments and opinion of ACLU’s security and privacy researcher Christopher Soghoian who said that services must be secure from the get-go. This means that developers have to be better at anticipating security issues as opposed to simply coming up with ways to deal with them later on.

    Soghoian added that several technology companies have made vast improvements on their security functions ever since Snowden leaked highly classified information on the U.S. government’s spy programs last year. Despite these developments, Soghoian maintained that the advertising-based models of these companies require the collection of user data, which is eventually accessed by the government.

    Snowden concluded his speech by negating rumors that the NSA has broken into popular encryption standards and saying that “encryption does work”. He also declared that he would do what he did again “regardless of what happens” to him because he believed that the U.S. Constitution “was being violated on a massive scale”.

    Watch Snowden speak at SXSW

    Image via YouTube

  • These Senators Are Not Happy With The NSA’s Collection Of Webcam Images

    On Thursday, The Guardian reported that the NSA had given legitimacy to all the conspiracy theorists who cover up the webcams on their laptops with the reveal of Optic Nerve. The program, carried out by both the NSA and Britain’s GCHQ, collected and stored images from the webcams of innocent users. If that wasn’t enough, the report also revealed that the NSA was looking into intercepting video feeds from Xbox 360 Kinect users.

    As is expected by now, a number of senators are very unhappy with this report.

    Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Martin Heinrich issued a joint statement today condemning Optic Nerve. The three say the program shows “a breathtaking lack of respect for the privacy and civil liberties of law-abiding Americans.”

    Once again, the argument here is not that surveillance systems shouldn’t exist. They should, and are helpful when targeted directly at wrongdoers. The senators feel, however, that programs like Optic Nerve largely overstep the boundaries that should be in place.

    Here’s the rest of their statement:

    In recent decades, largely isolated national communications systems have been replaced by a single, globally interconnected communications network. While this has had incredibly positive benefits, it has also 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.

    We commend Chairman Feinstein for her decision to conduct a comprehensive review of ongoing surveillance programs, and we plan to thoroughly investigate these most recent reports as that review goes forward. Any involvement of US agencies in the alleged activities reported today will need to be closely scrutinized.”

    Despite their commendation, the senators should be wary of any review coming from Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein. She’s proven time and time again that she’s squarely on the side of expanded surveillance and has defended the NSA at every turn. Even her proposed bill would do nothing to stop the NSA’s surveillance, but rather codify it in law while promising just a little more transparency in return.

    So, what’s next for Wyden and company? The best thing they can be doing is promoting Sen. Patrick Leahy’s USA Freedom Act. The bill would put a stop to the NSA’s widespread collection of Americans’ phone records, reform the FISA court and fix other areas of the NSA’s surveillance programs. It was referred to committee back in October of last year, but it’s made no progress since then. Hopefully this will spur on senators to renew the fight for its passage.

    Image via Senator Ron Wyden/Facebook

  • Edward Snowden Elected Rector At University Of Glasgow

    Edward Snowden, who made headlines last year for revealing details about U.S. phone and Internet surveillance, is now the student rector at UK’s Glasgow University. The post is a symbolic one, and is decided by a student election. As rector, Snowden represents the student populace and is expected to work with the student representative council, bring student concerns to the attention of university management, and attend the university court.

    Snowden was nominated by a group of students who had received his prior approval through his legal representative. The group stated that Glasgow University has a tradition of making noteworthy and relevant statements through their rectors. Electing Snowden to the post was their way of showing him and other whistleblowers that they stand in solidarity with them and their cause—in this case, the opposition to surveillance, the immoral and pervasive intrusion by the state into the private lives of its people.

    “Whistleblowers should be honored and they’re heroes rather than traitors,” Lubna Nowak said in an interview. She is part of the student group who nominated Snowden to the post.

    The other nominees to the post were author Alan Bissett, local clergyman Kelvin Holdsworth, and champion cyclist Graeme Obree. Snowden succeeds former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy. Previous Glasgow University student rectors include Mordechai Vanunu and Winnie Mandela.

    Snowden will hold the post for three years, after which there will be another round of nominations for the next rector. This year’s election was done using a single transferable vote system. During the first round, he received 3,124 votes, and got 3,347 in the second round of voting.

    Snowden, a former analyst for the United States National Security Agency, became known for disclosing classified documents to the media. The documents revealed that the NSA had been running surveillance on Internet use and telecommunications on a global scale. He has been granted temporary asylum in Russia after fleeing the US in May 2013.

    Edward Snowden is elected as rector

    Image via YouTube

  • Edward Snowden: NSA Memo Confirms He Stole Co-Worker’s Password

    According to a memo issued by the National Security Agency to members of Congress, former contractor Edward Snowden may have resorted to stealing his coworkers’ login credentials in order to gain entry to the agency’s highly classified database.  Snowden has denied the accusation and claimed the report to be incorrect.

    The memo also relates how Snowden obtained the Public Key Infrastructure password of an NSA civilian employee by getting him to type it on his work computer. The unnamed employee was not aware that Snowden was able to secure the password, thereby providing him with complete access to confidential NSA information. After a temporary suspension of his security clearance, the agency made it permanent toward the end of last year. The NSA civilian handed his official resignation last month after informing the FBI of the oversight.

    The NSA has also revoked the security clearance of two other individuals connected with the agency due to their involvement in the controversial leakage. The memo also states that one of them is a military member in active duty and the other is an unnamed contractor. They have also been banned from using their official workstations, although their employers maintain discretion over the extent of their accountability.

    Edward Snowden is responsible for what is considered the most important information leak in the history of the United States, according to author Daniel Ellsberg. A computer systems administrator by profession, Snowden used to work for the Central Intelligence Agency and the NSA. He started exposing highly confidential agency data on June 2013 to such well-known publications as The Washington Post and The Guardian.

    Snowden is currently residing in Russia on a yearlong temporary asylum. The US government regards him as a fugitive from justice and his charges include theft of government property and espionage. The NSA memo was first released through the NBC News website and has since been included by the agency in their report to the Judiciary Committee.

    Image via YouTube

  • Rand Paul Sues Obama and NSA Over “Metadata”

    Rand Paul has taken a bold step against the NSA’s collection of “metadata” from U.S. citizens. He announced today that he has filed a historic lawsuit against the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, NSA Director Keith Alexander, FBI Director James Comey, and Barack Obama himself, according to Fox News.

    Paul is asking for the collection of “metadata”, supposedly only what numbers were dialed from where, to be proven unconstitutional and ceased. He says such data collection violates the Fourth Amendment.

    He said in an opinion piece for CNN, “Americans do not like to think of their government as some Orwellian leviathan, engaging in surveillance tactics that we only expect to see in oppressive autocracies. That such surveillance could be going on in what is ostensibly the freest nation in the world is a chilling thought indeed.”

    “There’s a huge and growing swell of protest in this country of people who are outraged that their records would be taken without suspicion, without a judge’s warrant and without individualization,” Paul said, at the press conference in Washington during which he made the announcement.

    The NSA has insisted the whole time that the privacy of American citizens is thoroughly protected. They say that the contents of such calls are not recorded, and that what they are doing is safely within legal boundaries. “We remain confident that the program is legal, as at least 15 judges have previously found,” a Justice Department spokesperson said Wednesday.

    Paul disagrees. He states that this “metadata” that is assumed to be harmless actually “reveals a wealth of detail” about Americans’ personal and professional associations “that are ordinarily unknown to the government.”

    It’s not only Senator Paul that is taking this stand against data collection. In fact, he said hundreds of thousands of people have joined, and he thinks that the suit could “conceivably represent hundreds of millions of people who have phone lines in this country.”

    He later stated in his Opinion piece, “We are told that these intrusive and unconstitutional measures are necessary to protect us from the forces of international terrorism. We are told that a surrender of our privacy rights is a small price to pay for the knowledge that we can sleep safe and secure in our beds.”

    Paul continued, “We reject this premise. We are committed to a safe America, but we do not accept the notion that a surveillance state is necessary to safeguard the lives and liberty of American citizens.”

    Wow. This ought to be interesting.

    Image via wikimedia commons

  • Here’s Everything You Need To Know About The NSA

    Even before the Snowden leaks of last year, the EFF had their suspicions in regards to what the NSA was up to. The group even tried to get the government to spill the beans a few times through lawsuits that never went anyway. As you can imagine, the Snowden leaks helped their cause greatly, and now they’re trying to educate the public on just how far the NSA goes.

    EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl gave a talk at CCC late last year called “Through a PRISM, Darkly: Everything We Know About The NSA Spying.” The hour-long talk has just recently been uploaded to YouTube and it gives a brief overview of what the Snowden leaks have exposed in the months since the first leak regarding Verizon handing over Americans’ phone records.

    Here’s the full synopsis:

    From Stellar Wind to PRISM, Boundless Informant to EvilOlive, the NSA spying programs are shrouded in secrecy and rubber-stamped by secret opinions from a court that meets in a faraday cage. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Kurt Opsahl explains the known facts about how the programs operate and the laws and regulations the U.S. government asserts allows the NSA to spy on you.

    If you ever wanted to know what all the hubbub was about when it comes to the NSA, this is the video for you.

    Image via EFForg/YouTube

  • FISA Court Approves Changes To The NSA

    Since June of last year, the Obama administration has been on damage control in regards to the leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. In various speeches since then, the president has defended the surveillance programs while also promising to reform some of its most controversial elements. Of course, any reform has to be approved by the FISA court and it finally did just that.

    The Hill reports that the FISA court has recently approved President Obama’s two reforms to how the NSA accesses the massive trove of Americans’ cellphone data. The first would require the NSA to seek a court order before looking into its database of phone records. The second would limit the number of phone numbers the NSA could look at when chasing a target. Currently, the agency is allowed to look at numbers that are three steps away from the target, but it’s now been changed to two.

    While reform is certainly welcome, many feel that President Obama’s suggestions don’t go far enough in addressing the issue at hand. Many still feel that the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone records goes too far. Even if the agency has to obtain a court order to access the database, civil liberty proponents will argue that it’s not enough. Obama’s Civil Liberties board agrees and has argued that it should be shut down.

    While a shut down of the program is unlikely, the FISA court is at least trying to be a little more proactive than the government when it comes to transparency. The court told the government to work on declassifying both its reform request and the court’s response. We’ll see a heavily redacted version of it by February 17.

    So, what’s next for the NSA? In his speech, Obama ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to work with National Intelligence Director James Clapper in devising a way to take the NSA’s database out of its hands. The most popular option seems to be giving the database to a private third party, but many feel that this approach would just lead to Americans’ metadata being stolen by hackers considering the poor security employed by private entities in the U.S.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons