The sky is falling - We need a police state!!!!
FBI hacking squad used in domestic investigations
FBI - F*ck the 4th Amendment, I got a gun and a badge and can do anything I want!!!!FBI hacking squad used in domestic investigations, experts say
Suzanne Choney NBC News
The FBI is using its own hacking programs for installing malware and spyware on the computers of suspected terrorists or child pornographers, a tactic that is drawing attention in the wake of disclosures about the domestic online surveillance of Americans.
Among the programs is one known by various names, including the Remote Operations Unit and Remote Assistance Team, which uses private contractors to do the actual hacking of suspects. The contractors can send a virus, worm or other malware to a suspect's computer, giving law enforcement control of a wide range of activities, from turning a computer's webcam on and off to searching for documents on the machine, says Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
"In the last few years the FBI has created a team that has solely focused on delivering what we call malware — viruses and worms — to people's computers to get control of them," he told NBC News.
The FBI was contacted Monday by NBC News for comment, but has not yet responded. If we hear back, we will update this story. The agency, believed to be behind a recent large-scale malware attack, declined to comment to the Wall Street Journal about the hacking issue. Meanwhile, CNET reports that the FBI has reportedly developed software to help intercept "metadata" — information like the websites visited and email addressed used by an individual — and it wants Internet providers to allow the agency to install the software, but is meeting with resistance.
Mark Rasch, former head of the Department of Justice's Computer Crimes Unit who has worked with the FBI in the past, said the existence of the hacking team is well-known, and that there are other similar teams, coordinating with private contractors.
"There's a whole bunch of groups in the FBI that do this," Rasch, now an independent consultant, told NBC News. "There's one that interfaces with telephone companies, another with Internet providers. These guys make 'critters' — malware, a bug, virus, a worm — that can infect the computer, the cellphone ... any kind of communication device."
However, he said, the FBI is obtaining court-approved warrants or wiretap orders to do the surveillance.
"If I'm going to turn on your camera on your laptop, I'm going to need to go through the same legal process that I would need in order to install a camera in your house," he said. "There are exceptions to the warrant requirement, but I would be surprised if they were doing this without a warrant or some kind of legal process."
Soghoian said he is not so sure that is the case. "We don't know much about what legal standards they follow," he said.
Earlier this year, he said, "we learned that the FBI had gone to a federal magistrate in Texas to ask for a warrant authorizing the delivery of malware that would take over a target's webcam, and download files from their computer. That judge said no, because he believed that covert webcam use required a wiretap order not just a warrant. The judge was also concerned that the government hadn't identified how it would make sure that only the court-approved target of the surveillance would be spied on, and not anyone else."
Alan Butler, appellate advocacy counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told NBC News that while the "government's access to hacking tools has been known for some time," until recently it "was not clear that they were being used in domestic criminal investigations."
"I don't think it is clear that a warrant or judicial order is sufficient to support the use of intrusive hacking tools," he said in an email. "These tools can cause damage to hardware and software, and allow the monitoring of personal communications and even audio-visual surveillance surrounding electronic device."
Butler believes the FBI's "authority to use these hacking tools has not been clearly established, and there should be a public review of the legality of this program."
Soghoian agrees. "What I'm focused on is that we haven't had a proper debate on this. There was no law giving the FBI authority to do this."
Rasch says the "real problem isn't the FBI or the law; it's technology," and the nature of malware, or "critters" that are "hard to control."
Malware does not discern who is using a device and the innocent may wind up getting hurt, or having their privacy invaded as collateral damage in cyber-spying.
"It's hard for me to write a virus that will only capture your actions on a computer without also capturing your kids using it to do their homework or your daughter getting undressed in front of a Web camera," he said.
Check out Technology and TODAY Tech on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.
FBI informants authorized to break the law 5,600 times
More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our government masters.Licensed criminals: FBI informants authorized to break the law 5,600 times in one year
Published time: August 05, 2013 00:55
Edited time: August 06, 2013 09:30
In at least 5,658 cases in a single year alone, the FBI authorized its informants to commit crimes varying from selling drugs to plotting robberies, according to a copy of an FBI report obtained by USA Today.
After much redacting by the authorities, the watered-down FBI's 2011 report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that agents had been authorizing 15 crimes a day on average, in order to get the necessary information from their informants.
The document does not indicate the severity of the crimes authorized by the agency, nor does it include material about violations that were committed without the government's permission. It just sites a number of 5,658 Tier I and II infractions committed by criminals to help the bureau battle crime.
According to the Department of Justice Tier I is the most severe and includes “any activity that would constitute a misdemeanour or felony under federal, state, or local law if engaged in by a person acting without authorization and that involves the commission or the significant risk of the commission of certain offenses, including acts of violence; corrupt conduct by senior federal, state, or local public officials; or the manufacture, importing, exporting, possession, or trafficking in controlled substances of certain quantities.”
The Tier II includes the same range of crimes but committed by informants acting without authorization from a federal prosecutor but only from their senior field manager in FBI.
In the past, the newspaper revealed, the violations ranged from drug dealing to bribery.
As an example of severe crime committed by an authorized informant, the newspaper references the case of James Bulger, a mobster in Boston who was allowed by the Federal government to run a gang ring in exchange for insider information about the Mafia. Since then, the US Justice Department ordered the FBI to track and record the wrongdoings of the informants, results of which are due annually.
The FBI remains secretive about its informants. It is known that in 2007, the FBI estimated that around 15,000 confidential sources were employed by the bureau.
The Justice Department has requirements in place which spell out the rules of engagement with informants and “otherwise illegal activity.” Authorization of violent crimes are not allowed by field agents and serious offenses must first be approved by federal prosecutors. But as the publication notes, the FBI’s Inspector General concluded in 2005 that the agency routinely failed to abide by those rules.
The FBI’s scheme to gather information using such methods is believed to be only the tip of the iceberg as other local, state and federal agencies also reportedly engage in similar practices. The FBI’s share of criminal prosecutions in court only amount to 10 percent of all criminal cases.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the FBI, Denise Ballew, declined to comment the report saying only that the circumstances in which the bureau allows its informants to break the law are "situational, tightly controlled.
Sorry Mr. President, there already is an "outside task force" to balance civil liberties and security issues.
It's called the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Of course you probably flushed it down the toilet after you used the Bill of Rights to wipe your *ss!!!
Obama unveils efforts to increase transparency on surveillance
By Holly Bailey, Yahoo! News | Yahoo! News
President Barack Obama unveiled new efforts to increase transparency and “build greater confidence” about the government’s controversial surveillance efforts, acknowledging that the public’s trust has been shaken after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked operational details about the programs.
“It’s not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs,” Obama declared at a White House news conference. “The American people have to have confidence as well.”
Among other things, Obama called for the creation of an outside task force to advise his administration on how to balance civil liberties and security issues. He also said he had directed the intelligence community to make as much information about the spying programs as possible and directed the NSA to create a website that would be a “hub” for that information.
“These steps are designed to make sure the American people can trust that our interests are aligned with our values,” Obama said.
Asked about his decision to cancel a September summit with Russian President Vladmir Putin, Obama admitted Moscow’s decision to grant Snowden asylum played a role in that decision, but insisted it wasn’t the only factor. He pointed to differences on Syria and human rights and said he believed it was more helpful to “take a pause, reassess where Russia’s going” and “calibrate the relationship” before meeting with the Russian leader.
“The latest episode is just one more in a number of emerging differences that we’ve seen over the last several months,” Obama said.
Obama announces NSA reforms, takes questions at news conference
By Steven R. Hurst Associated Press Fri Aug 9, 2013 1:09 PM
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama announced a series of steps Friday meant to ease fears about the scope of secret domestic and foreign surveillance activities, saying he is confident the programs are “not being abused” but that they must be more transparent.
He gave no indication he was ready to end the massive collection of information about Americans’ telephone calls and email.
[This is typical of our lying double talking politicians. They have one press conference to say they are FOR something and then another press conference to say they are AGAINST the same thing. I suspect it works and people believe the version that they wish was true. As opposed to hearing both conflicting stories and realizing that one way or another the politicians are lying to us.]
In his first press conference since April, Obama also explained his decision to cancel a summit meeting next month with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and said he had only “mixed” success in moving forward in resetting the relationship between the two countries.
Russia’s recent decision to grant asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was not the only reason for calling off the Putin meeting, Obama said.
He encouraged Putin to “think forward instead of backwards” on a long list of issues that will define currently strained relations in the future.
In wide-ranging comments lasting nearly an hour, Obama also said it would not be appropriate to boycott the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, despite Russian laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians.
The president also said he did not consider Snowden, who is charged in federal court with violations of the Espionage Act, as a whistleblower or “patriot.” He invited Snowden, if he feels what he did was legal and right, to return to the United States to defend his actions.
[Yea, Obama will let Snowden defend his actions - from a prison cell to a kangaroo court]
Addressing the issues raised by Snowden’s leaks of secret government surveillance programs, Obama said the world needs to be convinced that U.S. espionage does not step on their rights.
[In that case stop the spying and pardon Snowden and Manning]
One goal of Obama’s news conference was to try to calm anger over a spying program that has been kept secret for years and that the administration falsely denied ever existed.
[Trust us, we haven't flushed the Bill of Rights down the toilet, and even if we did it's for your own benefit! Honest!!!]
The administration was releasing more information Friday about how it gathers intelligence at home and abroad, plus the legal rationale for the bulk collection of phone records without individual warrants. That program was authorized under the USA Patriot Act, which Congress hurriedly passed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the U.S. [And many legal scholars will tell you the Patriot Act is blatantly unconstitutional!!!!]
The National Security Agency says phone records are the only things it collects in bulk under that law.
[Trust us, we aren't keeping track of anything else you do. Honest! Swear to God!!! And no we didn't video tape the sex you had with that women who is your mistress]
But officials have left open the possibility that it could create similar databases of people’s credit card transactions, hotel records and Internet searches.
[Again trust the NSA. Don't think of them violation your Constitutional rights, they are protecting you from those terrorists that hide under your bed and only come out at night!!! Honest!!!]
The changes Obama endorsed Friday include the formation of an outside advisory panel to review U.S. surveillance powers, assigning a privacy officer at the National Security Agency, and the creation of an independent attorney to argue against the government before the nation’s surveillance court.
[Yea, an independent attorney that reports to Obama and the NSA!!!]
All those new positions would carry out most of their duties in secret.
[And unless another guy like Snowden comes along and exposes us, we will pretend we are no longer keeping a dossier on you.]
The debate over national security and privacy began with the leaks by Snowden, a former government contract systems analyst, who revealed classified documents exposing NSA programs that store years of phone records on every American.
That revelation prompted the most significant reconsideration yet of the vast surveillance powers Congress granted the president after the 2001 attacks.
Obama has found Congress surprisingly hostile to those powers since they were made public, especially from an unusual coalition of libertarian-leaning conservatives and liberal Democrats.
[Rubbish!!! Congress is only hostile to those powers in the media because they want to get re-elected. Congress has done NOTHING to repeal the Patriot Act.]
The administration says it only looks at the phone records when investigating suspected terrorists. But testimony before Congress revealed how easy it is for Americans with no connection to terrorism to unwittingly have their calling patterns analyzed by the government.
When the NSA identifies a suspect, analysts can look not just at the suspect’s phone records but also the records of everyone he calls, everyone who calls those people and everyone who calls those people.
If the average person called 40 unique people, for example, analysis would allow the government to mine the records of 2.5 million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist.
Yemen official: U.S. drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes
Associated Press Thu Aug 8, 2013 8:36 PM
SANAA, Yemen — The U.S. has sharply escalated its drone war in Yemen, with military officials in the Arab country reporting 34 suspected al-Qaida militants killed in less than two weeks, including three strikes on Thursday alone in which a dozen died.
The action against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen branch is known, comes amid a global terror alert issued by Washington. One Mideast official says the uptick is due to its leaders leaving themselves more vulnerable by moving from their normal hideouts toward areas where they could carry out attacks.
The U.S. and Britain evacuated diplomatic staff from the capital of Sanaa this week after learning of a threatened attack that prompted Washington to close temporarily 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa.
Thursday’s first reported drone attack hit a car carrying suspected militants in the district of Wadi Ubaidah, about 175 kilometers (109 miles) east of Sanaa, and killed six, a security official said.
Badly burned bodies lay beside their vehicle, according to the official. Five of the dead were Yemenis, while the sixth was believed to be of another Arab nationality, he said.
The second drone attack killed three alleged militants in the al-Ayoon area of Hadramawt province in the south, the official said. The third, also in Hadramawt province, killed three more suspected militants in the al-Qutn area, he added.
All the airstrikes targeted cars, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The drone strikes have become a near-daily routine since they began July 27. So far, they have been concentrated in remote, mountainous areas where al-Qaida’s top five leaders are believed to have taken refuge.
But drones also have been seen and heard buzzing for hours over Sanaa, worrying residents who fear getting caught in the crossfire.
While the United States acknowledges its drone program in Yemen, it does not talk about individual strikes or release information on how many are carried out. The program is run by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA, with the military flying its drones out of Djibouti, and the CIA out of a base in Saudi Arabia.
Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale declined to comment Thursday and would not confirm the existence of a military drone program in Yemen. The CIA also declined to comment.
Since July 27, drone attacks have killed 34 suspected militants, according to an Associated Press count based on information provided by Yemeni security officials.
The terror network’s Yemeni offshoot bolstered its operations in Yemen more than a decade after key Saudi operatives fled here following a major crackdown in their homeland. The drone strikes and a U.S.-backed offensive that began in June 2012 have driven militants from towns and large swaths of land they had seized a year earlier, during Yemen’s political turmoil amid the Arab Spring.
The sudden drone barrage could further upset a population already angered by bombings that have killed civilians, said Gregory Johnsen, the author of “The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaida and America’s War in Arabia.”
“It’s a really rapid increase when there was a long time where there were no drone strikes for weeks,” Johnsen said in an interview with the AP. “This has a lot of people in Yemen on edge.”
A U.S. intelligence official and a Mideast diplomat have told the AP that the embassy closures were triggered by the interception of a secret message between al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri and Nasser al-Wahishi, the leader of the Yemen-based offshoot, about plans for a major attack.
Authorities in Yemen said they had discovered al-Qaida plot to target foreign embassies in Sanaa and international shipping in the Red Sea.
Yemeni authorities said this week that a group of al-Qaida militants have entered Sanaa and other cities to carry attacks. It issued list of 25 al-Qaida wanted militants. The Yemeni statement said security forces will pay $23,000 to anyone who comes forward with information that leads to the arrests of any of the wanted men.
The discovery of the al-Qaida plot prompted the Defense Ministry to step up security around the strategic Bab el-Mandeb waterway, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. Officials banning speedboats or fishing vessels from the area.
Details of the plot were reminiscent of the suicide attack on the USS Cole in 2000 in Aden harbor that killed 17 American sailors.
One local political analyst suggests the latest plots were floated by the group to show it is still a formidable force.
“Al-Qaida has suffered losses and it is trying to make an impression,” said analyst Ali al-Sarari, who is close to the Yemeni government. “The mere talk about an upcoming attack gives the group a chance to restore its shattered image … as a group capable of exporting terrorism.”
A senior security official told AP that the al-Qaida leaders never meet together out of fear of a drone attack killing all of them at once. These include al-Wahishi, a onetime aide to Osama bin Laden; Qassem al-Raimi, believed to be the military commander; and Ibrahim al-Asiri.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to brief the media, said al-Wahishi is believed to be trying to recruit informants in the mountainous areas of Marib in central Yemen, especially in the Wadi Ubaidah valley, where tribal allies of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh are concentrated.
Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi became president in 2012 after a year of mass protests demanding Saleh’s ouster. Since then, Hadi has accused Saleh’s men, who are still in key positions in security agencies and municipalities, of trying to hinder his reforms.
Marib is one of the few places known to be al-Qaida strongholds, and the Yemeni military has not tried to carry out a large offensive there because of the strong presence of anti-government tribes.
The official said al-Raimi is believed to be moving in southern Yemen, while al-Asiri is believed to be in the north, close to the border with Saudi Arabia, his home.
Johnsen said the U.S. faces a major problem in Yemen when it comes to intelligence gathered on the ground. By relying solely on cellphone calls and other intercepts, chances are increased that a drone strike could merely target a tribesmen who once called an al-Qaida figure, rather than a militant, he said.
“The U.S. is firing missiles into a country, if not blindly, maybe just one-eyed.” he added.
Yemeni troops have stepped up security across Sanaa, with multiple checkpoints set up and tanks and other military vehicles guarding vital institutions. The army has surrounded foreign installations, government offices and the airport with tanks and troops.
In Sanaa’s cafes and on its public transportation, the drones were a popular topic of conversation, prompting fear and even some dark humor.
“These aircraft are really scaring people here,” said Mohammed al-Mohandis, a teacher, who added that he and his friends heard the drone while chewing leaves of qat, the mild stimulant plant that is addictively used in Yemen.
Al-Mohandis even joked with his buddies that someone could have planted an electronic chip on them. “Watch out, or you are finished!” he said, drawing laughter.
Another Sanaa resident, Ahmed Said, suggested the Americans should target those who cause power outages in the city, instead of al-Qaida.
Speaking to AP over the phone, Said shouted at a man crossing the street slowly: “Hurry up, the drone will hit you!”
———
Michael reported from Cairo. Associated Press Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Jon Gambrell in Cairo contributed to this report.
Of course it also has turned America into the worlds biggest police state. Having police criminals and government criminals abuse us is far worse then having common street criminals abuse us.
In this case the cops proudly brag that illegally searching the phone records of millions of people helped then arrest one stinking criminal. But that's just government double talk to justify the police and government of committing millions of crimes to justify one lousy arrest.
And last if you ask me I don't think it should even be a crime for some guy in the USA to give money to a group in Africa. The American government doesn't have any business passing silly laws that regulate our activities with foreign nationals.
NSA cites case as success of phone data-collection program
By Ellen Nakashima, Published: August 8 E-mail the writer
He was a San Diego cab driver who fled Somalia as a teenager, winning asylum in the United States after he was wounded during fighting among warring tribes. Today, Basaaly Moalin, 36, is awaiting sentencing following his conviction on charges that he sent $8,500 to Somalia in support of the terrorist group al-Shabab.
Moalin’s prosecution, barely noticed when the case was in court, has suddenly come to the fore of a national debate about U.S. surveillance. Under pressure from Congress, senior intelligence officials have offered it as their primary example of the unique value of a National Security Agency program that collects tens of millions of phone records from Americans.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
Officials have said that NSA surveillance tools have helped disrupt terrorist plots or identify suspects in 54 cases in the United States and overseas. In many of those cases, an agency program that targets the communication of foreigners, including e-mails, has proved critical.
But the importance of the phone logs in disrupting those plots has been less clear — and also far more controversial since it was revealed in June.
Across a dozen years of records collection, critics say, the government has offered few instances in which the massive storehouse of Americans’ records contained the first crucial lead that cracked a case — and even those, they say, could have been obtained through a less intrusive method.
“There’s no reason why NSA needed to have its own database containing the phone records of millions of innocent Americans in order to get the information related to Moalin,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), a Senate Intelligence Committee member who has been pressing officials for evidence of the program’s effectiveness. “It could have just as easily gone directly to the phone companies with an individualized court order.”
[I suspect that Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) wants the government to force private phone companies to do the spy on Americans for the government???]
U.S. officials say that the NSA’s programs often work in conjunction with one another — and that taking away a critical ability such as the “bulk collection” of phone records would undermine the agency’s effort to prevent terrorist attacks.
“You essentially have a range of tools at your disposal — one or more of these tools might tip you to a plot, other [tools] might then give you an exposure as to what the nature of that plot is,” NSA Deputy Director John C. Inglis told a Senate panel last week. “Finally, the exercise of multiple instruments of power, to include law enforcement power, ultimately completes the picture and allows you to interdict that plot.”
The NSA collects its vast digital archive of phone records under a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. U.S. officials emphasize that those logs do not contain the names of customers or content — just “metadata,” which includes phone numbers and the times and dates of calls. They note that they need a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that a number they wish to check in the database is linked to a foreign terrorist group.
And they say that without having all the calls in one place and easily searchable with a keystroke, finding links to suspicious numbers would be tedious and time-consuming.
Moalin’s lawyer said he is surprised that counterterrorism officials have cited his client’s case as a hallmark success.
“The notion that this case could be used to justify a mass collection of data is mind-boggling, considering it’s $8,500 that went to Somalia,” said Joshua Dratel, who denied that his client sent money to the terrorist group.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
Needle in a haystack
It was a tip that put Moalin on the FBI’s radar in 2003. But when investigators found no link to terrorism, they closed the case. Then, in 2007, the NSA came up with a number in Somalia that it believed was linked to al-Shabab. It ran the number against its database.
Inglis said officials had no idea whether the number had ties to any number in the United States. “In order to find the needle that matched up against that number, we needed the haystack,” he said.
The NSA found that the San Diego number had had “indirect” contact with “an extremist outside the United States,” FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce told the Senate last week. The agency passed the number to the FBI, which used an administrative subpoena to identify it as Moalin’s. Then, according to court records, in late 2007, the bureau obtained a wiretap order and over the course of a year listened to Moalin’s conversations. About 2,000 calls were intercepted.
Over several months in 2008, prosecutors say, Moalin arranged for the transfer of several thousand dollars to al-Shabab. They say he sent the money to a prominent al-Shabab military leader named Aden Hashi Ayro and other associates. In May 2008, Ayro was killed by a U.S. cruise missile strike.
In 2009, an FBI field intelligence group assessed that Moalin’s support for al-Shabab was not ideological. Rather, according to an FBI document provided to his defense team, Moalin probably sent money to an al-Shabab leader out of “tribal affiliation” and to “promote his own status” with tribal elders.
In 2010, three years after the bureau opened an investigation, it arrested Moalin as he was about to board a flight to Somalia to visit his wife and children.
Prosecutors alleged that Moalin and some acquaintances were sending money to al-Shabab to finance attacks against the transitional government of Somalia and allied fighters from Ethiopia, as well as civilians.
In the calls, Moalin is heard speaking to a man called “Sheikalow,” who prosecutors allege was Ayro, the al-Shabab commander. In one call, Sheikalow can be heard telling Moalin that it was “time to finance the jihad.”
Moalin’s defense attorneys argued that the voice was in fact that of a local police chief from Moalin’s home region, who sometimes goes by the name of Sheikalow. The police chief testified in a video deposition that he spoke with Moalin. The reference to jihad was about fighting the Ethiopians, not the West, Dratel said. He said the men were sending money to help build schools and orphanages.
In February, a jury convicted Moalin and three acquaintances — all Somali immigrants — on conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. Moalin faces up to life in prison.
Identifying threats in U.S.
U.S. officials argue that Moalin’s number probably would not have surfaced — at least not in a timely fashion — had it not been for the database. And they draw a parallel with the period before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
The provision that allowed the NSA to collect phone records has helped thwart “dozens” of terror events, Gen. Keith B. Alexander told a Senate panel.
The NSA, targeting a safehouse in Yemen, intercepted seven calls from hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar. But the NSA didn’t know where he was calling from. “Lacking the originating phone number, NSA analysts concluded that al-Mihdhar was overseas,” the Justice Department said in recently declassified reports to Congress on the phone records program.
“In fact, al-Mihdhar was calling from San Diego,” the reports said.
Had the intelligence community known where Mihdhar and a co-conspirator were and detained them, the “simple fact of their detention could have derailed the plan,” the 9/11 Commission said. To close that gap, the government created the phone call database. The goal, the reports say, is to “rapidly identify any terrorist threats emanating from within the United States.”
The NSA could put together a more limited dataset by going to every phone company and asking for all the numbers that have been in contact with a target number.
[Again it seems like our government masters want to shift the spying on Americans from NSA to the local phone companies to get around those pesky 4th Amendment problems!!!]
But that takes time, and if analysts want to examine secondary contacts, they would have to go back to the phone company, officials said.
Such arguments do not persuade critics, even when the government asserts that the database helped break another case involving a co-conspirator in a plot to bomb the New York City subway system. “In both cases,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said recently on the Senate floor, “the government had all the information it needed to go to the phone company and get an individual court order.”
If time was of the essence, he said, a different court order or administrative subpoena would allow for an emergency request for the records. Wyden noted that both Moalin and the subway plot co-conspirator were arrested “months or years after they were first identified” by mining the phone logs.
The bottom line, said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a House Intelligence Committee member, is that even if the program is “only occasionally successful, there’s still no justification that I can see for obtaining that amount of data in the first place.”
Timothy H. Edgar, a former deputy privacy officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that he had pushed for a middle ground solution that would let the phone companies hold the data and perform the link analysis.
“You wouldn’t have this problem of having this massive database in the hands of the government, where the government is saying, ‘Trust us,’ ” said Edgar, who is now at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Affairs.
Following the uproar about the NSA’s far-reaching collection of phone data, U.S. officials have said they are willing to discuss revisions. At the Senate hearing last week, Robert S. Litt, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the administration is open to seeing “whether there are changes that can be made that are consistent with preserving the essence of the program, and yet provide greater public confidence.”
Piercing the confusion around NSA’s phone surveillance program
By Dana Priest, Published: August 8 E-mail the writer
On the third floor of the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in downtown Washington, judges assigned to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court place their palms on a biometric hand scanner mounted next to the entrance door. Then the judges and their staff enter a code into door’s electronic cipher lock.
Inside a secure vault — one impenetrable to any sort of technical eavesdropping — the judges review some of the Justice Department’s most sensitive requests for access to private communications information, including the phone records of tens of millions of Americans, a collection that has generated significant criticism since it was disclosed in June.
The court is staffed year-round, and on an emergency basis, to authorize surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community. Although much attention has been focused on the court’s approval of the NSA’s so-called metadata phone records program, interviews with intelligence officers and experts, public statements and recently declassified documents indicate that the authorization marks the beginning of a long — and, U.S. officials say, carefully regulated — process.
That process, they say, often starts thousands of miles away. During a night raid in Kandahar, Afghanistan, U.S. Special Operations commandos might seize a computer belonging to a terrorist cell leader, for instance, and find an electronic phone book on it. An NSA linguist listening to intercepted phone calls from a terrorist in Yemen might hear him talking repeatedly to the same person about a bomb. A Saudi intelligence service might provide the cellphone number of a new, English-speaking al-Qaeda courier to the CIA station chief in Riyadh.
In each case, the numbers would trigger a search of the NSA’s vast collection of Americans’ phone records — even local calls.
The program that collects metadata has been referred to in shorthand as the “215 program” after the section in the law that governs it. It is a search for a needle in a haystack of unimaginable proportions, and administration officials can point to few successes.
The NSA maintains a separate collection program, known as PRISM, that was exposed in June and has been at times conflated with the metadata program. But PRISM is focused not just on terrorism but any foreign intelligence matter. It is especially used to pursue foreign terrorism suspects, foreign espionage cases and investigations involving weapons of mass destruction, and it routinely sweeps up the content of e-mail and social media exchanges involving American citizens, according to documents and interviews.
There is still much confusion about each program, even among people who have been briefed on them, and even among officials involved in carrying them out. What follows is an explanation of the 215, which has generated the most controversy and the most dedicated effort at reform in Congress.
Every 90 days, Justice Department lawyers ask a federal judge to renew the authority to collect the phone records of all Americans by reissuing what is known as a “215 order,” after the section in the USA Patriot Act that government lawyers have determined permits the collection of such records. That blanket order allows NSA analysts to search the phone database for links between foreign terrorists and their U.S.-based contacts.
But to begin a particular search, analysts must submit a request to their superiors showing why there is a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that the number belongs to a member of a recognized terrorist organization. A reasonable, articulable suspicion is lower than the standard of “probable cause” used in criminal investigations to obtain a warrant or make an arrest. But the suspicion has to be based on facts that a reasonable person would accept.
[Yea, like "I work for the government and I think that guy is a scum bag criminal" or "That guy is dating my ex-wife and he must be doing something wrong"]
The analysts’ 215 requests go to one of the 22 people at the NSA who are permitted to approve them — the chief or the deputy chief of the Homeland Security Analysis Center or one of 20 authorized Homeland Security mission coordinators within the Signals Intelligence directorate’s analysis and production directorate.
[And as we all know out of the thousands of there requests none has ever been denied by the secret NSA courts run by secret NSA judges.]
Once a request is approved, it is given to one of the Signal Intelligence directorate’s 33 counterterrorism analysts who are authorized to access the U.S. phone metadata collection.
When one of the analysts attempts to log into the database, the computer verifies whether the analyst has permission to do so. Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who leaked details of the program, would not have had such authority.
An analyst’s search of the metadata begins with a foreign number: the number the NSA intercept was targeting in Yemen; the number the Saudi intelligence liaison took from the detainee; numbers found in the computer in Afghanistan that show calls to Europe or the United States.
The analyst then queries the database to see if it contains the number. In 2012, the database was queried 300 times by an NSA analyst.
If the database finds a U.S. phone number, the analyst will begin a “link analysis” chart of all the numbers connected to the original number and metadata about the calls, such as their date, time and duration. The metadata also includes a phone’s routing information, telephone calling card numbers and other identifiers internal to each phone.
It does not include the content of the calls or the names of the phone subscribers. It does not contain information about the phone’s location .
An analyst, for example, might find what appear to be 10 U.S. phone numbers — based on area codes or other identifiers — linked to the original number. The analyst will then use tools such as reverse telephone directories, public search engines and other NSA databases of foreign phone numbers.
Intelligence experts said other factors that could make a phone interesting to analysts are the frequency of calls linked to the initial number or the timing of calls, before or after attacks, for example.
Of the original 10 U.S.-based phone numbers identified, only two might remain interesting to the analyst. Using those two numbers, the analyst searches for all the calls made or received by those two phones. This is called a “hop.” The process often stops at the second hop but can go to a third if the second yields more numbers of interest.
Whatever numbers survive after the NSA analyst’s search are passed to the FBI for further investigation. The NSA gave the FBI 500 numbers in 2012.
The FBI’s job at this point is to find out whether any of those U.S. numbers should be investigated further for links to terrorist organizations or supporters. To do this, the FBI queries its own databases for numbers that are linked to existing bureau cases; or linked to overseas phone numbers known to be associated with other terrorist suspects; or show other foreign connections that raise questions.
The FBI can also search publicly available information, including court records, social media and certain commercial databases, which can give subscribers a person’s Social Security number, past residences and much more.
If the FBI wanted to go further, such as obtaining a person’s bank or credit card records, it would require a court order, warrant or subpoena and then an assessment or investigation probably would occur.
Each NSA database search is audited afterward by compliance officials at the agency. How many phone numbers are searched is reported every 30 days to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Every 90 days, a small team from the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence spends a day at NSA looking over 215 documents and questioning analysts. Cursory reports on 215 activity are sent to Congress every year. The last one was eight sentences.
The government says there have been no willful abuses of the system, only a few mistakes. No information has been released about those instances.
Another e-mail service shuts down over government spying concerns
By Timothy B. Lee, Published: August 9 at 1:30 am
SILENT CIRCLE LOGOA prominent supplier of secure communications services has decided to shutter its e-mail service to avoid having to turn over confidential customer information to the government. The move comes hours after another e-mail service provider called Lavabit made the same decision in order to avoid becoming “complicit in crimes against the American people” — likely a reference to government surveillance.
Silent Circle offers a suite of secure communications tools, including e-mail, chat, and voice calling to customers in 126 countries. The chat and voice services employ “end-to-end” encryption, which means that the company itself does not have the capability to unscramble customers’ communications and turn them over to the government. But e-mail services need to interoperate with other e-mail providers. That makes end-to-end encryption impractical and creates a danger that the company could be compelled to hand over information to the government.
For Silent Circle, that was a major concern because Silent Circle’s business is based on promising absolute confidentiality to its clients. “There are some very high profile, highly targeted groups of people” among the firm’s customers, says Silent Circle CEO Mike Janke. “We felt we were going to be targeted, without a doubt.”
“We see the writing the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now,” the company wrote in a Thursday blog post. “We have not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government, and this is why we are acting now.”
Silent Circle’s other communications products, including voice and chat, will continue operating as usual. On those services, “there’s nothing we could turn over” to the government, Janke says. Because the company doesn’t collect information about its customers communications, “there’s nothing we could ever be forced anywhere by any country to do.”
Jannke says his firm has been growing rapidly in the two months since Edward Snowden revealed the extent of government surveillance. He doesn’t expect the closure of the e-mail service to hamper the firm’s growth. “We’re on track to have between 2 million and 3 million users by the end of this year,” he says.
The closure of the two e-mail services will provide ammunition to those who argue that aggressive spying is jeopardizing America’s leading position in the international market for online services. One recent estimate suggested that U.S. companies could lose as much as $35 billion as fears of NSA surveillance lead foreign companies to cancel their contracts with U.S. cloud service providers.
And sadly in America most people in prisons are not criminals, but people who committed victimless drug war crimes. The Federal government says over HALF the people in prisons in America are there for victimless drug war crimes.
After emotional hearing, FCC votes to lower inmate phone rates
By Ricardo Lopez and Christine Mai-Duc
August 9, 2013, 9:34 a.m.
After a decade of lobbying by prisoner advocacy groups, the Federal Communications Commission on Friday voted to lower inmate phone call rates.
The action seeks to address the exorbitant rates for phone calls made by inmates in jails and prisons across the country. A 15-minute phone call can cost $17, more than 10 times the average per-minute rate for typical consumer plans.
The proposal approved Friday will reduce the cost of phone calls made by prison inmates to a cap of 25 cents a minute for a collect call and 21 cents a minute for a debit or prepaid call.
"It took 10 years, but we are glad that the Commission will secure just and reasonable rates for everyone to protect Americans from unreasonable discrimination," said Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer rights group.
Who works the longest? Jobs with the longest and shortest workdays
Many families of prison inmates paid exorbitant fees for phone calls compared with typical long-distance rates as two telephone companies hold virtual monopolies.
The prison phone market, which brings in $1.2 billion annually, is dominated by two little-known phone companies. Global Tel-Link, based in Atlanta, and Securus Technologies of Dallas, both backed by private equity firms, make up more than 80% of the market, according to Standard & Poor's.
The result is a patchwork of contracts across states and counties, meaning a 15-minute phone call with Securus can cost $17.30 from an Alaska prison or $1.75 from Missouri, one of eight states that have banned commissions.
The companies operate by competing for exclusive rights to serve each jurisdiction, rights often won by promising the highest percentage in commissions. Hungry for revenue, state prisons and county jails have increasingly awarded contracts to companies that can promise more cash. In some cases, commissions account for as much as 60% of the cost of a phone call.
The at-times emotional hearing Friday included testimony from Bethany Fraser, whose children's father is currently incarcerated.
"Under the current rate system, my family struggles to maintain ties," Fraser told the commission.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who supported lowering inmate phone rates under a different proposal, dissented Friday.
Pai had previously proposed a different cap and said that the approved proposal would essentially make the FCC a micromanager and enforcement would be difficult.
The new rules, he said, "may not withstand a court challenge."
Phone companies oppose the changes, arguing they would make an already-competitive market even tougher on their bottom lines.
The companies insist it simply costs more to provide inmate phone services, which require security features such as call screening, restricting phone numbers and blocking three-way calls.
Infamous Mexican drug lord ordered freed, sentence in DEA agent's murder overturned
By Mark Stevenson
Associated Press
Posted: 08/09/2013 09:43:03 AM PDT
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A Mexican court on Friday ordered the release of infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero after 28 years in prison for the 1985 kidnap and killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, a brutal murder that marked a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations.
The court overturned Caro Quintero's 40-year sentence for the murder of Enrique Camarena, ruling he was improperly tried in a federal court for a crime that should have been treated as a state offense.
A court official who was not authorized to speak on the record said that Caro Quintero would be released because he had already served his time on other charges.
The 61-year-old Caro Quintero is considered the grandfather of Mexican drug trafficking. He established a powerful cartel based in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa that later split into some of Mexico's largest cartels, including the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels.
Mexico's relations with Washington were damaged when Caro Quintero ordered Camarena kidnapped, tortured and killed, purportedly because he was angry about a raid on a 220-acre marijuana plantation in central Mexico named "Rancho Bufalo" -- Buffalo Ranch -- that was seized by Mexican authorities at Camarena's insistence.
The raid netted up to five tons of marijuana and cost Caro Quintero and his colleagues an estimated $8 billion in lost sales.
Camarena was kidnapped on Feb. 7, 1985, in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and a major drug trafficking center. His body and that of his Mexican pilot, both showing signs of torture, were found a month later, buried in shallow graves.
American officials accused their Mexican counterparts of letting Camarena's killers get away. Caro Quintero was eventually hunted down in Costa Rica.
At one point, U.S. Customs agents almost blocked the U.S. border with Mexico, slowing incoming traffic to a standstill while conducting searches of all Mexicans trying to enter the United States.
Camarena's fellow U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents consider him a hero in the war against drug trafficking and the El Paso Intelligence Center, where U.S. federal agencies collect information about Mexican drug barons, is named after him.
Caro Quintero is said to have pioneered links between Colombian cocaine cartels and the Mexican smugglers who transport their drugs into the United States.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City had no immediately comment on the court decision.
Obama flushes Constitution and Bill of Rights???
"Obama called for the creation of an outside task force to advise his administration on how to balance civil liberties and security issues"
Obama announces NSA reforms
Source
Yemen official: U.S. drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes
Obama is a serial killer whose weapon of choice is drones???
President Barack Obama sounds like a sociopath who is a serial killer that uses drones as his murder weapon. Kind of like the Serial Shooters in Phoenix. You know, Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman. Except those creeps are amateur murderers compared to President Obama
A lame excuse to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet
NSA cites case as success of phone data-collection program
Sure if you flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet and give the police and our governments masters unlimited powers it will cut down on crime.
Piercing the confusion around NSA’s phone surveillance program
Source
Another e-mail service shuts down over government spying concerns
Source
FCC votes to lower inmate phone rates
When it comes to phone calls the criminal justice system is more about raising revenue for special interest groups then rehabilitating criminals.
Drug lord ordered freed, sentence in DEA agent's murder overturned
Source
Phoenix man seeks to recall Rep. Kyrsten Sinema
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema supports the police state Patriot Act???
Phoenix man seeks to recall Rep. Kyrsten SinemaKyrsten Sinema when she was in the Arizona legislator tried to flush Arizona's medical marijuana laws down the toilet by introducing a bill to slap a 300 percent tax on medical marijuana.
When I first met Kyrsten Sinema it was in the anti-war movement.
But it seems that Kyrsten Sinema has sold out the anti-war movement and now supports the police state and military industrial complex.
When I knew Kyrsten Sinema she was also a gun grabber.
Last in almost every election when Kyrsten Sinema has run for office her campaign signs say she is supported by the police unions. I guess that is a good indication that Kyrsten Sinema has sold out to the police state.
Phoenix man seeks to recall Rep. Sinema
By Erin Kelly Gannett Washington Bureau Fri Aug 9, 2013 3:26 PM
WASHINGTON -- A Phoenix man has applied to circulate a petition to recall U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema from office because he does not like how she voted on a measure to prevent the National Security Agency from collecting phone data on Americans as part of its intelligence-gathering efforts.
However, a spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Bennett said the secretary of state’s office would not order a recall election in Sinema’s case even if thousands of signatures are collected because the congresswoman is not bound by the state’s recall law.
In Arizona, some federal officials have signed a voluntary pledge through the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office agreeing to accept the results of any recall election, if one is called. Sinema never signed that pledge.
“Sinema didn’t sign the pledge so the entire process would end without a recall being ordered,” said Matt Roberts, Bennett’s spokesman.
No member of Congress from Arizona, even those who signed the pledge, has ever been recalled.
On Thursday, Phoenix resident Michael David Shipley applied to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, stating his intent to circulate and file a recall petition against Sinema, a freshman Democrat. He listed himself as treasurer of an organization called the “Nullify Sinema Alliance.” Another Phoenix man, Thane Eichenauer, was listed as chairman of the group.
The application objects to the fact that Sinema voted against an amendment to a defense spending bill.
That amendment, which failed after a close vote, was introduced by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and would have prevented the National Security Agency from collecting most telephone data under the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law. The agency would have been able to collect data only from people under investigation and could not have conducted broader intelligence-gathering efforts in the United States.
Shipley’s application says that Sinema “has broken her oath” to defend the U.S. Constitution by voting against the legislation.
“On July 24th, 2013, (Sinema) chose not to stand with 205 other U.S. House members in placing a limit on government snooping,” the application says. “Kyrsten Sinema chose to reject limits on NSA data collection. In doing this, she supports a ‘Big Brother’ government with no limits. We call on our fellow Arizona residents to support the recall of Kyrsten Sinema.”
Sinema, in a press release issued on the day of the vote, said she voted against Amash’s amendment because it was too broad and she feared it would interfere with the NSA’s efforts to thwart terrorist plots.
“I believe, while well intentioned, that the text of this amendment could interfere with legitimate and appropriate efforts to keep our citizens safe from harm,” Sinema said. “The broad language we considered today could have limited the ability of our national security and law enforcement community to prevent the bombing plot against the New York subway system or to quickly respond to events like the Boston bombing.”
Instead, Sinema voted for an alternative amendment by Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., that prevents the NSA from storing the content of Americans e-mails and phone calls. It would allow the NSA to continue storing phone metadata. It passed 409-12.
“I believe this (Pompeo’s amendment) is a good step forward and that we can find stronger ways to protect our individual liberties,” Sinema said.
If Shipley disagrees with Sinema’s vote, he should run against her rather than trying to recall her, said Sinema campaign spokesman Rodd McLeod. Sinema is up for re-election in November 2014.
“The entire House of Representatives is up for re-election next fall, and if this gentleman wants to run against Kyrsten, it’s a free country,” McLeod said. “He should run.”
Shipley, a 38-year-old Libertarian and local activist, said opponents of Sinema’s vote shouldn’t have to wait until the regular election.
“I definitely haven’t ruled out myself or somebody else I’ve organized with running against her,” Shipley said Friday. “But why wait? Why should we sit and be unhappy and see our wishes thrown under the bus? The time to act is now, not later.”
Under Arizona law, a candidate for the U.S. Senate or U.S. House “may” file with the secretary of state a statement that says, “If elected, I shall deem myself responsible to the people and under obligation to them to resign immediately if not re-elected on a recall vote.”
Federal candidates who sign that pledge and are elected to office “shall be subject to the laws of the state relating to recall of public officers,” according to the Arizona statute.
But Sinema did not subject herself to any state recall laws since she did not sign the Arizona pledge. And a January 2012 report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service says that members of Congress are not subject to recall.
“The United States Constitution does not provide for nor authorize the recall of United States officers such as Senators, Representatives, or the President or Vice President, and thus no Member of Congress has ever been recalled in the history of the United States,” the CRS report says.
Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema takes a junket to Israel
Atheist Kyrsten Sinema sells out to the Jewish Christian lobbyists???
Atheist US Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema sells out to the Jewish Christian lobbyists???Even though US Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema is an atheist in this article see seems to have sold out to the Jewish Christian lobbyists. And of course she also seems to have sold out to the military industrial complex which supplies Israel with weapons that they use to terrorize the Arabs.
"Sinema and other Democratic lawmakers were in Israel on a previously scheduled trip paid for by an arm of a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group."
Last but not least US Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema attempted to flush Arizona's medical marijuana law down the toilet by introducing a 300 percent tax on medical marijuana.
Political Insider: Irate Goldwater refuses to answer senator’s questions on its ties to ALEC
The Republic | azcentral.com Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:17 PM
Another assault on freedom ... Or so the Goldwater Institute believes, as it sent an indignant retort to a U.S. senator who asked the conservative think tank if it is associated with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.
Specifically, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wanted to know if Goldwater served as an ALEC member, if it funded ALEC this year and if it backed ALEC’s support of model legislation promoting “stand your ground” gun laws.
The reason for the Illinois senator’s snoopiness? Durbin wrote that he needs the information as he readies a congressional hearing on the self-defense law. He’s also reaching out to other groups that have been identified as ALEC funders.
Goldwater officials fired off a letter that effectively told Durbin to stuff it.
“Simply put, especially in the wake of IRS intimidation and harassment of conservative organizations, your inquisition is an outrage,” wrote Goldwater president Darcy Olsen, litigation director Clint Bolick and policy director Nick Dranias.
They refused to answer, because, they wrote, “as free Americans, that is our right.”
For the record, media reports have identified Goldwater as an ALEC donor.
Sorry, can’t make it, I had other plans ... Wendy Rogers, the tough, bike-riding, Republican Air Force mom who’s hoping to unseat U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in the midterm elections, was outraged that her potential Democratic rival missed President Barack Obama’s Phoenix speech this week.
“Disrespectful. Self-serving. In it for herself,” Rogers, who ran unsuccessfully in the primary last year, blustered on her Facebook page. “Today the president of the United States came to our AZ-09 district, yet our congresswoman didn’t even show perfunctory respect by at least showing up.”
Sinema and other Democratic lawmakers were in Israel on a previously scheduled trip paid for by an arm of a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group.
Arizona’s Republican members of Congress were in town. And none of them was at Obama’s speech, either.
He’s the president. ’Nuff said ... The state’s congressional delegation may have missed Obama’s speech, but the Legislature and Gov. Jan Brewer’s office were well represented.
The GOP gaggle waiting to get inside the Desert Vista High School auditorium wasn’t exactly thrilled to see Insider and offered different reasons for stepping into the swarm of swooning Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader John McComish said his district includes the Ahwatukee Foothills school, so he was representing his constituents. Senate Majority Whip Adam Driggs said the commander in chief, no matter their party, is a big deal: “It’s out of respect for the office.”
Brewer chief of staff Scott Smith, general counsel Joe Sciarrotta and spokesman Andrew Wilder also attended the speech. But given Brewer’s rather scathing prepared statement that followed — “Our recovery has been made possible in spite of the president’s policies — not because of them” — they apparently weren’t impressed.
State schools Superintendent John Huppenthal arrived early and grabbed a VIP seat with a passel of Democratic lawmakers. He’s the state’s top education official, and the speech was at a school, so that’s a handy excuse if he needs one.
But, really, does anyone need an excuse to see the president?
No resign if I run ... House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, is eying a run for the Congressional District 1 seat. And while he won’t say if he’s in, plenty of others in the political-gossip echo chamber are saying it for him.
Tobin said if he decides to take the plunge, he won’t jump out of the pool that is the Arizona Legislature. Tobin said he intends to remain speaker through the 2014 session, which would coincide with the eight-year limit on his term.
It’s bad form to abandon one office to seek another, he said.
Early prediction: If Tobin does jump into the CD1 race, look for a short session. It’s hard to campaign across a vast chunk of rural Arizona when you’re tied up in Phoenix.
Compiled by Republic reporters Mary Jo Pitzl, Mary K. Reinhart and Rebekah L. Sanders. Get the latest at politics.azcentral.com.
Snowden's father decries 'political theater' over son's leaks
SourceSnowden's father decries 'political theater' over son's leaks
By Christi Parsons
August 11, 2013, 12:07 p.m.
WASHINGTON – The father of Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, complained Sunday about the “political theater” surrounding his son’s disclosures of secret surveillance programs and dismissed President Obama’s proposed reforms as “superficial.”
Lon Snowden said he was disappointed with Obama’s promises at a news conference on Friday to reform spying practices and credited his son with spurring the president to act. [Obama hasn't done anything other then spout a lot of hot air on how this is bad, bad, bad. I suspect Emperor Obama will do NOTHING to stop the NSA from violating the 4th Amendment]
“I believe that's driven by his clear understanding that the American people are absolutely unhappy with what they've learned and that more is going to be forthcoming,” Snowden said in an exclusive interview on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“I believe much of what he suggested is superficial,” Snowden said.
Other critics agreed Sunday that the president might not have acted at all if not for the Snowden leaks. Among the disclosures, Snowden revealed information showing the NSA has assembled a massive database of telephone call logs of virtually every American.
But there was considerable debate about whether the president’s pledge to reform NSA surveillance programs was mainly for show and whether it will quell public concern. [I'm sure it's all for show and that President Obama and Congress will do NOTHING. Well nothing other then spew a bunch of how air about how bad this is and how it needs fixing!]
After weeks of controversy over the spy programs, Obama proposed to put in place greater oversight, more transparency and safeguards against abuse. He also proposed creating a role for a civil liberties advocate to ensure the government will no longer be the only side represented when its requests to conduct surveillance are weighed by the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Obama is also considering changes to the law to limit how much information on Americans the NSA can get and how long it can retain the data.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, said he thinks the president’s reforms are “window dressing.” [I suspect that is also a bunch of hot air coming from Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas]
“The problem, fundamentally, is he’s failed to explain these programs, which are lawful, which have saved lives,” he said, “and now he’s in a bit of a mess.”
But McCaul said he worries that Obama’s idea of adding a privacy advocate to the Foreign Service Intelligence Act court would slow down investigations.
“I’m in a unique position to talk about this,” McCaul said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I actually applied for FISA warrants as a counterterrorism prosecutor, and I think the idea of having a public defender . . . would slow down the efficacy and efficiency of our counterterrorism investigation.” [Yea, and obeying the Bill of Rights will also slow down counterterrorism investigations. I bet you also want to flush the Bill of Rights down the toilet in the interest of government efficiency.]
Former NSA director Michael Hayden says he took Obama to mean he wouldn’t really “operationally change” things at the NSA.
Like McCaul, though, he raised concerns about the effect of a privacy advocate before the FISA court.
“Looking through your windscreen when you lay this on, it just looks like more thorough oversight,” Hayden said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “When you’re looking in your rearview mirror after the next successful attack, this runs the danger of looking like bureaucratic layering.”
In the days since Snowden accepted temporary asylum in Russia, avoiding return to the U.S. to face charges for violating the Espionage Act and stealing government property, supporters and critics have argued about whether he is a traitor or whistleblower, a defector or a patriot.
Obama on Friday said that, whatever Snowden claims to have done, he isn’t a “patriot.” [Snowden is a patriot, Obama is a tyrant!]
Snowden’s father said Sunday he thinks the president’s public pronouncements have made it difficult for his son to get fair treatment if he returns to the United States.
“They have poisoned the well, so to speak, in terms of a potential jury pool,” he said on ABC.
“As a father, I want my son to come home if I believe that the justice system that we should be afforded as Americans is going to be applied correctly,” Snowden said.
Edward Snowden’s lawyer, Bruce Fein, said he has secured visas for a visit but declined to say when he and Snowden’s father will travel.
The family has told the Department of Justice that they would like to discuss the conditions under which Edward Snowden would return to the United States.
One thing they have requested is a “venue that was impartial,” Fein said, “because of the history of the Eastern District of Virginia being a graveyard for defendants.”
christi.parsons@latimes.com
Twitter: @cparsons
Most people are in prison for victimless drug war crimes
After victimless drug war crimes most people are in prison for weapons violations
Victimless drug and gun crimes are why most people are in Federal prisons.
51 percent of federal prison inmates are there for victimless drug war crimes. In the above graph the second highest number of people are in federal prisons for weapons violations. The article didn't give a percent for weapons violations.
Eric Holder is cutting federal drug sentences. That will make a small dent in the U.S. prison population.
By Dylan Matthews, Published: August 12 at 2:50 pm
Populations at federal prisons have grown, but state prisons are the real problem.
Attorney General Eric Holder will announce Monday that the Justice Department will no longer charge nonviolent drug offenders with serious crimes that subject them to long, mandatory minimum sentences in the federal prison system. As my colleague Sari Horwitz explains, Holder “is giving new instructions to federal prosecutors on how they should write their criminal complaints when charging low-level drug offenders, to avoid triggering the mandatory minimum sentences.”
He’s also expected to call for the expanded use of prison alternatives, such as probation or house arrest, for nonviolent offenders and for lower sentences for elderly inmates. And he’ll endorse legislation by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would increase federal judges’ flexibility in sentencing nonviolent drug offenders.
The changes Holder wants will likely make a big difference at the federal level. But that won’t be enough to solve America’s mass incarceration problem.
Focusing on drug offenses is a smart way to go about reducing the federal incarceration rate. According to data in Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?, a new book by UC – Berkeley’s Steven Raphael and UCLA’s Michael Stoll, the most serious charge for 51 percent of federal inmates in 2010 was a drug offense. By comparison, homicide was the most serious charge for only 1 percent, and robbery was the most serious charge against 4 percent.
Tougher drug sentencing accounts for much of the increase in the incarceration rate. “If you go back and decompose what caused growth in the federal prison system since 1984, a large chunk can be explained by drug offenses, around 45 percent,” Raphael says. The other big category accounting for the federal increase is weapons charges, such as the five-year mandatory minimum faced by drug offenders caught with guns. Raphael estimates that that accounts for 18 to 19 percent of the increase.
There’s also been an increase in incarcerations on immigration charges, with the rest of the increase in other areas. But there’s no doubt that the biggest category of crime behind the increase in the federal incarceration rate is drugs. Easing up on drug sentencing would make a big dent.
The states are different
But the federal system isn’t really where the action is. The most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimates find that there are 1,353,198 people incarcerated at the state level and 217,815 incarcerated federally. So about 13.9 percent of U.S. prisoners are in federal institutions; the other 86.1 percent are in state facilities. And most prisoners at the state level are not there for drug crimes.
In 2004, about 20 percent of state-level inmates were incarcerated on drug convictions, Raphael and Stoll find. Compared with the federal population, those incarcerated at the state level are much likelier to have committed violent offenses. In 2004, 14 percent were in prison for homicide, 9 percent for rape or sexual assault, 12 percent for robbery and 8 percent for aggravated assault. In 2011, it was much the same, according to BJS stats on state inmates serving sentences of a year or more. Fifty-three percent of inmates were in prison for violent offenses, 18.3 percent for property crimes, 10.6 percent for “public order” offenses such as drunk driving, weapons possession or vice offenses, and 16.8 percent for drug convictions.
Bjs state breakdown
Raphael and Stoll’s estimates of what’s accounting for the higher incarceration rates suggest that violent crimes are a big part of the state-level story. They find that harsher sentencing for violent offenders explains 48 percent of growth in incarceration rates, compared with about 22 percent attributable to increases in drug sentencing, and 15 percent due to increases in property crime and other sentences.
Then again, most people who go through state criminal justice systems do so on drug offenses. If you look at admission rates, rather than incarceration rates, at the state level, drugs become a much bigger part of the picture. For admissions, Raphael and Stoll find “relatively modest increases for violent crimes and property crimes and pronounced increases for drug offenses, parole violations, and other less serious crime.” And while higher admissions for less serious crimes with shorter sentences don’t affect the incarceration rate as much as increases in sentencing for serious crimes, they do dramatically affect the lives of those admitted, who have to find work as ex-offenders and live with the sundry restrictions states impose upon those who’ve served time.
It’s not hopeless
Holder is taking a fairly plausible approach to reducing the U.S. incarceration rate at the level where he can effect it. But that’s not the level that matters most, and if we were to get serious about reducing the state-level incarceration and admissions rates, we need to talk not just about reducing sentences for drug crimes but also about reducing prison admissions for drug offenses, and perhaps also lowering sentences for property crime and even violent offenses, particularly robbery.
There has been growing enthusiasm for reforming state sentencing laws, even backed by many conservatives. The American Legislative Exchange Council has joined the cause, creating model legislation for loosening state mandatory minimum laws. Especially if it’s not just limited to drug offenses, that kind of reform could greatly reduce the state incarceration rate.
¿Como se dice Nazi en Español? ¡¡¡John Kerry!!!
SourceEU recaba información para garantizar seguridad: Kerry
El secretario de Estado estadounidense justificó los programas de espionaje de su país y reiteró que éstos se realizan dentro del marco jurídico.
El secretario de Estado de Estados Unidos, John Kerry, respondió a las quejas brasileñas sobre el espionaje global y dijo que su país seguirá haciendo "lo necesario" para preservar la "seguridad" de los estadounidenses y "del mundo en general".
En una rueda de prensa junto al canciller brasileño, Antonio Patriota, quien reiteró el malestar que causaron en su país las denuncias del espionaje estadounidense, Kerry aseguró que Washington hará "lo necesario para que esos problemas no interfieran en las relaciones" y sostuvo que EU actúa "dentro de las leyes".
Kerry explicó que no podría "discutir cuestiones operacionales" relativas a la "seguridad nacional" en una rueda de prensa, pero aseguró que todas las actividades de las agencias estadounidenses se dan en los marcos de leyes aprobadas "por el Congreso nacional después de los ataques del 11 de septiembre" de 2001.
Según Kerry, "Estados Unidos recoge información de inteligencia para proteger a sus ciudadanos, como hacen todas las naciones del mundo, y lo hace dentro de las leyes".
Explicó que, en el caso de Brasil, "se seguirá dialogando para que haya certezas y el gobierno entienda y esté de acuerdo" con lo que Estados Unidos "debe hacer para garantizar su seguridad y la seguridad del mundo en general".
Subrayó además que, "en los últimos años, un cierto número de grupos (terroristas) han atentado contra los intereses no sólo de Estados Unidos, sino también de otros países", y que el gobierno de Barack Obama "sólo está intentando evitar que esas cosas ocurran".
Según Kerry, Brasil y Estados Unidos deben seguir "trabajando juntos" y "concentrarse" en las "realidades más importantes de las relaciones bilaterales". Entre ellas citó la promoción de "los valores democráticos", el "empeño por mejorar la vida de nuestras sociedades", el fomento del comercio y las relaciones económicas o la cooperación en áreas como ciencia y tecnología.
Government surveillance spurs Americans to fight back
SourceGovernment surveillance spurs Americans to fight back
By Dana Priest, Published: August 14 E-mail the writer
At the Pentagon and CIA, they are known as “countermeasures,” the jargony adaptation of Newton’s Third Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The U.S. Army in Iraq jammed cellphones to counter deadly roadside bombs triggered by calls.
Osama bin Laden switched to carrier pigeons when spy agencies got good at eavesdropping on al-Qaeda communications.
And Adam Harvey revved up his assembly line to foil — or at least critique — the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone records in the name of counterterrorism.
Harvey is an artist and privacy advocate in New York. His “privacy protection” creations, which include “anti-drone garments” that he says thwart thermal imaging cameras, have attracted the attention of guerrilla fashionistas and at least one intelligence agency. (He won’t say which one or share the e-mail the agency sent him because he’s so concerned about it.)
His latest gadget, to be sent to customers Sept. 20, is a metallized fabric case that he says shields a cellphone from electronic poaching by the government, by phone companies, by whomever.
“The thing I’m worried about is creating a large database of all my movements and not knowing what it’s used for,” said Harvey, 32, who has been in the habit of turning his phone off and taking out the battery to counter companies he believes already know too much about him. [If the phone has a large capacitor in it, the phone will continue to operate for some time even if the battery is removed]
“When you give up your privacy, it can make anyone vulnerable to manipulation,” he said.
A tradition of resistance
Harvey’s creations are the latest in a typically American cultural reaction to perceived or real government intrusiveness that is as old as government surveillance of citizens.
“It reflects a growing cultural influence and critique about the scope of government activity,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, said of Harvey’s work. “Everybody carries some degree of paranoia. And maybe he’s not the only one who should be worried. Maybe it’s anyone who has an e-mail, cellphone or Zip code.”
In 2006, Rotenberg’s organization and its supporters protested a new U.S. electronic passport whose embedded microchip can be read from a distance. They handed out “personal passport protectors” — plastic bags and aluminum foil to wrap the passport and make the chip unreadable. Afterward, the government tweaked the technology to make the passport harder to read by unauthorized persons.
When the Transportation Security Administration adopted body scanners at airports, activists wrote the Fourth Amendment on their underwear in metallic paint readable by the new devices.
The U.S. government’s ever-expanding use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), some armed with Hellfire missiles, has provoked a mini-industry of cultural countermeasures, local government regulations and splashy, nonlethal uses.
In San Francisco, a drone delivered an engagement ring to a wedding proposal. In Philadelphia, a dry cleaner used the aircraft to carry clean shirts to customers. In Stockholm, an artist designed a clown-faced “peace drone” that dispenses the painkiller oxycodone.
A growing concern about drones in U.S. airspace has prompted legal countermeasures. In the small Colorado town of Deer Trail, the town board recently split 3 to 3 on an ordinance that would have approved drone-hunting licenses and bounties for shooting them. Residents will vote on the measure in November.
It began with one man’s campaign. “We don’t want drones in town,” Phillip Steel told Denver TV station ABC7. “They fly in town, they get shot down.”
The Federal Aviation Administration reacted with a warning about the injury risks of shooting objects out of the sky.
An Oklahoma state representative wants to limit police access to surveillance drones to certain situations, such as finding a missing child.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a nemesis of drone surveillance and critic of domestic surveillance in general, managed to get the FBI to tell him it had used surveillance drones in eight criminal cases and two national security cases.
“None of the UAVs used by the FBI are armed with either lethal or non-lethal weapons, and the FBI has no plans to use weapons with UAVs,” an FBI letter to Paul stated last month. “The FBI does not use UAVs to conduct ‘bulk’ surveillance or to conduct general surveillance not related to an investigation or assessment.”
Every drone operation is done by the book, with the proper approvals, the letter said.
To protect and provoke
Harvey’s inspiration for his first privacy project, a kind of facial camouflage, did not originate with something as serious as the possibility of drone warfare. It was inspired by club parties. It bothered him that someone could easily take pictures of people in their most unguarded moments and post the photos online, without permission, perhaps never to be erased.
Developed as his master’s thesis at New York University, CV Dazzle, named after a type of ship camo used during World War II, is face paint designed to make features undetectable by computer vision algorithms, which are used in computerized facial recognition.
From there he moved into a line of “anti-drone” garments made of a metallized fabric that traps body heat. It is meant to cloak heat signatures from the prying eyes of thermal imaging devices sometimes mounted on drones and police surveillance aircraft. To be provocative, the clothes come in only three styles: a burqa, a hijab and a hoodie.
His customer base for the few he has sold so far has been “niche and fashion,” Harvey said. He said he does not intend to sell his stealthwear to anyone with nefarious motives: “I’m mostly interested in the conversations it generates.”
The NSA declined to comment on Harvey’s work, as did the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Dickie Richards, who retired from the NSA after 41 years of service, said the garments and phone case could be “somewhat effective” but that bending the material could easily create gaps through which electronic signals or heat could escape. “It’s much better than wearing an aluminum cap, though,” he laughed.
If the government targets someone, he added, such countermeasures would be useless against the many tools officials could bring to bear. “It could be effective if they’re a target of convenience,” he acknowledged.
Harvey’s latest invention, the phone case, was almost ready for mass production when Edward Snowden released his trove of classified NSA documents and the world learned just how much phone and e-mail traffic the spy agency was vacuuming up every day. Taking advantage of the news, Harvey rushed to begin an online Kickstarter fundraising campaign ahead of schedule.
The Kickstarter campaign went active Aug. 2 with a goal of $35,000, which would allow Harvey and his colleague, Johanna Bloomfield, to produce and market the product in larger quantities. Halfway through the campaign, they have raised more than $44,000.
Sidewalk chalk could land four protestors in jail for a year
Don't these pigs have any real criminals to hunt down????I remember we had an anti-war protest in Phoenix and the government used the same convoluted logic about a chalk drawing made on the sidewalk.
They also said the drawing would cost thousands of dollars to clean up, when in fact 5 minutes with a hose and water is all it would take to clean up the drawing.
![Not one single cop in [Las Vegas, Nevada] Metro's entire history has been charged after shooting someone. Even if that person was unarmed and/or innocent](0_____photos/chalk_cop_protest.jpg)
Sidewalk chalk could land four protestors in jail for a year
By FRANCIS MCCABE
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Four people could face up to a year in jail for chalking up city sidewalks while protesting police misconduct.
Kelly Wayne Patterson, 44, Brian Ballentine, 31, Hailee Jewell, 18, and Catalino de la Cruz Dazo Jr., 20, face multiple gross misdemeanor counts of placing graffiti or defacing property and conspiracy to commit placing graffiti.
If convicted, they could face probation, a suspended driver’s license, community service and up to a year in the Clark County Detention Center.
The four protesters, affiliated with Nevada Cop Block and Sunset Activist Collective, used washable colored chalk in July to write critical statements of police on the sidewalks outside the Metropolitan Police Department’s headquarters and in front of the Regional Justice Center.
Demonstrating against police brutality and officer-involved shootings in Las Vegas, the protesters say they were practicing free speech and should not face charges.
District Attorney Steve Wolfson is taking the case seriously.
“This is not a kid drawing with a piece of chalk on the sidewalk. These are adults who used chalk to draw profanity,” he said. “And there is a law on the books that make it a crime to engage in this activity.”
One statement read: “Not one single cop in Metro’s entire history has been charged after shooting someone. Even if that person was unarmed and/or innocent.”
Another was: “(Expletive) the police.”
Officers on July 13 watched the protesters write statements on the sidewalk and told them they were violating anti-graffiti laws, according to police reports and court documents.
After the protest, Patterson and Ballentine were cited, and police called the city graffiti abatement team, which used high-powered washers to clean the dusty words.
Days later, before a scheduled court hearing on the citation the protesters again used colored chalk, typically made from a composite of calcium sulfate, as part of their protest outside the Regional Justice Center.
One statement read: “(Expletive) Pigs.”
An unknown woman dumped coffee on it, washing it away, according to police who witnessed the protest.
According to documents, Patterson then wrote on the coffee-stained ground, “(Expletive) the police.”
Police documented the evidence, called the city’s graffiti abatement team and began exhaustive research about the perils of power washing to sidewalks, including that it “artificially erodes and abrades the concrete’s surface thereby adding to the unnecessary wear and tear.”
Detailed police reports said the city crew cost $1,550 to clean both crime scenes.
The reports did not include the cost of the coffee used to clean one of the statements. It’s unclear whether it was a small, medium or large coffee.
Lawyer Robert Langford called the case preposterous and is representing the defendants pro bono.
“Under that standard, any kid that does hopscotch patterns on the sidewalk can be guilty of the same crime,” Langford said.
The veteran defense lawyer added, “Justice in this case is that the case should be dismissed. They were engaged in constitutionally protected First Amendment activity. Period. They have the right to engage in that type of protest. This was something that was harmless.”
Langford accused law enforcement officials of inflating the cost of the cleanup to justify the arrest and incarceration until bail was posted, instead of simply issuing a citation.
Part of his defense will be to show that the chalk could have been cleaned up at a lessor cost.
“My bet is a good stiff broom would have done the same thing,” he said.
By employing the power washing crew at a cost of more than $250, the graffiti charge was elevated from a misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor, which could mean a stiffer sentence if they are convicted.
Langford said the amount of time, money and other taxpayer resources spent on the case is ridiculous. And all “because the bullies at the Las Vegas police department wanted to hurt people who wanted to criticize them. That’s, in the final analysis, what this case is about.”
Langford added he’s considering filing a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the defendants.
“Public property is being defaced with profanity,” Wolfson said. “That’s what it comes down to.”
A preliminary hearing is set for December.
Contact reporter Francis McCabe at fmccabe@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039.
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