US DRONES IN AFRICA MAP http://publicintelligence.net/us-drones-in-africa/
NSA Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens link here
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.
The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.
The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said. Because of concerns about infringing on the privacy of American citizens, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners.
The agency can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents.
They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such “enrichment” data, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners.
N.S.A. officials declined to say how many Americans have been caught up in the effort, including people involved in no wrongdoing.
The legal underpinning of the policy change, she said, was a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that Americans could have no expectation of privacy about what numbers they had called.
In 2006, months after the wiretapping program was disclosed by The New York Times, the N.S.A.’s acting general counsel wrote a letter to a senior Justice Department official, which was also leaked by Mr. Snowden, formally asking for permission to perform the analysis on American phone and e-mail data. A Justice Department memo to the attorney general noted that the “misuse” of such information “could raise serious concerns,” and said the N.S.A. promised to impose safeguards, including regular audits (HMM EVERY 3 MONTHS BY FISA??), on the metadata program. In 2008, the Bush administration gave its approval.
The concerns in the United States since Mr. Snowden’s revelations have largely focused on the scope of the agency’s collection of the private data of Americans and the potential for abuse. But the new documents provide a rare window into what the N.S.A. actually does with the information it gathers.
A series of agency PowerPoint presentations and memos describe how the N.S.A. has been able to develop software and other tools — one document cited a new generation of programs that “revolutionize” data collection and analysis — to unlock as many secrets about individuals as possible.
MY COMMENT----WHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION DOES IT SAY GOVT CAN MONITOR AMERICANS TO CATCH FOREIGN TERRORISTS??!!! 4TH AMENDMENT PROTECTS AGAINST THAT----ITS LIBERTY OVER SECURITY---WE HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT
Justices Say GPS Tracker Violated Privacy Rights
Jan 2012 link here
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled unanimously that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days.
broad privacy principles to bring the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches into the digital age, when law enforcement officials can gather extensive information without ever entering an individual’s home or vehicle.
But five justices also discussed their discomfort with the government’s use of or access to various modern technologies, including video surveillance in public places, automatic toll collection systems on highways, devices that allow motorists to signal for roadside assistance, location data from cellphone towers and records kept by online merchants.
“We hold that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’ ” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion.
“The use of longer-term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses,” Justice Alito wrote, “impinges on expectations of privacy.” Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the concurrence.
MY COMMENT----I WONDER WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF NSA SPYING WENT TO SUPREME COURT----
Metadata great for finding journalists' sources---not at catching terrorists link here
The National Security Agency says that the telephone metadata it collects on every American is essential for finding terrorists. And that's debatable. But this we know for sure: Metadata is very useful for tracking journalists and discovering their sources.
On Monday, a former FBI agent and bomb technician pleaded guilty to leaking classified information to the Associated Press about a successful CIA operation in Yemen. As it turns out, phone metadata was the key to finding him.
FBI investigators started looking for the source of the story. They interviewed more than 550 officials, but they came up short.
So, in a highly controversial move, investigators secretly obtained a subpoena for phone records of AP reporters and editors. The records, which included the metadata of who had called whom, and how long the call lasted, covered a period in April and May of 2012. That was right around the time that the AP was reporting the Yemen story.
Once investigators looked at that phone metadata, they got their big break in the case.
SPY Q and A with Chris Boyce
A smart young dropout is welcomed into a promising career in the top secret world of U.S. defense contracting, but he’s quickly shocked to discover the deception practiced by America’s intelligence agencies at the highest levels. Disillusioned and outraged, he takes matters into his own hands and begins exfiltrating highly-classified documents right under the nose of his employer.
Today, that might describe NSA leaker Edward Snowden. But back in 1975, it was 22-year-old Christopher Boyce, who joined TRW as a telex operator and found himself handling some of the the government’s most sensitive communications. From inside TRW’s “Black Vault,” Boyce claims he learned the CIA was actively undermining the elected, left-wing government of Australia.
But instead of leaking to the press, as Snowden, and WikiLeaks leaker Chelsea Manning, would do decades later, Boyce became a spy. He embarked on a personal mission to damage the U.S. defense and intelligence complex, supplying classified crypto keys and program information to his friend Andrew Daulton Lee, who in turn traveled to Mexico and sold the information to the KGB.
Boyce and Lee were arrested in 1977 and both convicted of espionage.
The saga was the subject of the book and film The Falcon and the Snowman
I think that if contractors are going to leak info they need to go where they’re going to have asylum, stay there and then leak. And then that way the story becomes what they’re leaking and not the chase.
WIRED: If you were 30 years younger, do you think you would have been more like an Edward Snowden than someone who was going to sell secrets to the Russians?
Boyce: I have a quarter of a century of experience in the federal prison [system]. I almost spent 10 years in solitary confinement, and I just don’t think I could ever do that to myself again. I couldn’t bring the rage of the government down on my head again. Snowden’s a braver man than I would be now. I couldn’t do that again, and I’m sure there are hundreds and hundreds of other NSA contractors who also are thinking, ‘I couldn’t bring the power of the fed government down on me like that.’
So to what degree do you think the ‘problem’ is the public doesn’t have access to enough information about what governments are doing versus the problem being just general apathy?
Boyce: Well, I agree with what my wife Cait said here not so long ago: The average American is more interested in how much cream and sugar he has in his coffee than his civil liberties.
I have to tell you that I’m very pessimistic. I think the surveillance state will get stronger and stronger. I’m not optimistic at all that civil liberties are going to be protected, and I think that’s the direction that we’re headed.
SYRIA chem weapons UN agreement link here
The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a binding resolution on ridding Syria of chemical weapons.
At a session in New York, the 15-member body backed the draft document agreed earlier by Russia and the US.The deal breaks a two-and-a-half year deadlock in the UN over Syria, where fighting between government forces and rebels rages on.
The vote came after the international chemical watchdog agreed on a plan to destroy Syria's stockpile by mid-2014.
Next Citizens United can be worse link here
What’s at stake in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission — for which oral arguments are scheduled on Oct. 8 — is the limit to individual political spending. The federal government sets separate limits for each election cycle on how much an individual can give to candidates, party committees and political action committees. But it also currently limits overall spending to $123,200. It’s that overall limit that the McCutcheon fight is about. Proponents say it prevents corruption; opponents say it limits speech.
“We’re not challenging — and the plaintiff in McCutcheon is not challenging — any of the individual contribution limits,” says Rick Esenberg, a Marquette University Law School professor and president and general counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which filed a brief opposing the limit. Why, they ask, is it OK to donate $2,600 to 18 campaigns, but not 19? The case was brought by the Republican National Committee and Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman and conservative activist.
At the federal level only a small group — 646 individuals — bumped up against that aggregate limit during the 2012 election cycle, according to The Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets blog. But spending limits in a handful of states are lower, meaning that if they fall money could come flowing in.
While McCutcheon only affects the federal limit, experts are watching it closely and many on both sides believe the state limits either won’t survive or would become very vulnerable if the federal cap is nullified.
WIKILEAKS
Microphone was placed in Ecuador Embassy in London before visit to Assange link here
NYPD Whistleblower Adrian Schoolcraft link here
Cory Booker
"I think it's pretty well known that the mayor talks with people from all walks of life on Twitter," Booker spokesman Kevin Griffis told Daily Intelligencer. "There have been a couple of stories about that over the years. Really, the most shocking part of this story was learning there is a vegan strip club in Portland."
Lee said she did donate $100 to his Senate campaign.
HBO Newsroom---Operation Genoa (CNN operation Tailwind report)
Wikipedia Operation Tailwind
CNN retraction document
CNN video report
CNN program transcript
TIME magazine report
CNN retraction document
CNN video report
CNN program transcript
TIME magazine report
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