Posted on 06/14/2013 7:10:54 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
What was it that I was saying earlier this week about the intelligence-industrial complex? Bloomberg reported last night that Edward Snowden may have only scratched the surface on the cooperation between American intelligence agencies and commercial firms. In fact, the partnership is much wider than first thought — and the intel agencies provide their partners with some significant quid pro quo:
Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.
These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the National Security Agency. The role of private companies has come under intense scrutiny since his disclosure this month that the NSA is collecting millions of U.S. residents’ telephone records and the computer communications of foreigners from Google Inc (GOOG). and other Internet companies under court order.
Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications, that don’t involve private communications of their customers, the four people said.
Just how chummy do these firms get with the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA?
Some U.S. telecommunications companies willingly provide intelligence agencies with access to facilities and data offshore that would require a judge’s order if it were done in the U.S., one of the four people said.
In these cases, no oversight is necessary under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and companies are providing the information voluntarily.
You can look at this as American industry doing its patriotic duty in wartime. You can also look at this as trusted corporations selling out their customers to curry favor with the government to pick up some secret benefits. There’s probably a little of both going on, but it’s difficult to say which is most prevalent, in part because no one revealed that this was going on until now. Most sophisticated users would know that the capability exists but assume that the companies they choose to patronize would require a valid search warrant before surrendering the kind of data being shared. We know what happens when we assume, especially these days.
This raises a number of interesting questions and concerns. First, are cooperating firms gaining competitive advantages against non-cooperating (and/or unaware) firms in the same market? That kind of distortion would corrupt markets in favor of snitching as a survival tactic, would it not? Second, are there political organizations that have this kind of friendly relationship with intelligence services that give them a competitive advantage? Two months ago, one might have laughed off such a suggestion, but after what took place at the IRS, it’s a little more difficult to dismiss.
The part about the Microsoft bug reporting is especially interesting in light of the Attkisson story today, too.
Hope and change
Yes we can
Forward
Does Obama share all this data with the DNC?
And the defense contractors are full of liberals who happily feed info on conservatives to democrats.
For years, Charles Schwab and any other financial institution has hounded us to get our statements “online”....does it matter whether we sign up for this or not....in other words, if we get mailed hard copy statements, that’s ok...but if it were via email, they would be susceptible to, ahem, interference?
So, are nanny bloomers and the mares against ill-eagle guns(MAIGgots) also getting particular data that they would find useful in their push to disarm everybody.
We’ve got to survive first.
You bet your sweet bippie.
Just today Steve King said the democrats have detailed info on all their opposition right down to what websites they’ve visited.
They’re getting that info from somewhere and I think this is it.
Don’t worry, they can track your snail mail too using a Postal Service program called “Mail Isolation Control and Tracking” system (MICT). It photographs front and back of envelopes as they move through the sorting machinery. Its how they caught the woman who sent ricin to Bloomberg.
Nobody is saying they can see inside the envelopes but I assume they can if they wish. Science has been able to photograph paintings under paintings for at least 20 years.
Bear in mind that of this data can also be used by the private sector to fight corruption. If you get everyone in an uproar and remove access to all these data sources that in the end only the government and big business will have the ability to access it and you will play right into their hands.
Three days ago my wife claims she told me over my cell phone to pick up milk on the way home. I didn't pick up any milk because I say she didn't mention milk at all.
The NSA could help me to finally win an argument with my wife if I could get a transcript of that phone call. Probably not though...it might be considered private.
100 Days of Being a Laughingstock in Paris (Obama versus the CIA)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2298074/posts
Actually, there was a lot less in D&B of any use to us than their reputation suggested they ought to have. However, their reps gradually maneuvered us towards the happy day when we would merge our millions of business records with theirs and......... that's when we discovered we would MORE THAN DOUBLE the size of their data base, and with more stuff, and every bit of it more up to date.
They promised to give us a low rate for access their files.
Somebody put a stop to that deal ~ just in case anyone thinks the NSA thing is unusual. The 'cooperative' angle is in widespread use and any government in the country ~ state, local, county ~ might be approached with a deal so good you would not believe.... but all they really want is your files in their system!
We may well have some parties with interests in this NSA link with private firms working as moderators? Strange eh!
Regarding the specific issue here Google.com and Yahoo.com SELL such information openly ~ and they hand their data over to NSA as well AND FOR WHAT? Like, they gotta' be selling it for something so what does NSA give them in return?
lol
Let’s put this into prospective. What PRISM operations people do....they tend to believe this is a pit of information that will be kept and safe-guarded.
At some other end of this PRISM effort....is that door that swings open.
And the Chinese? They know the whole deal. They have their pit of data that they are collecting and it’s just as vast as PRISM...maybe more.
Here’s the rest of the story. The Chinese know what happened at Benghazi...names, times, calls, words spoken, worries. The Chinese know about the IRS business, from day one and who in the White House authorized what, and the emails that started this. The Chinese know the Soros connection and how much money was tossed at the first and second campaign. The Chinese know the actual medical records of President Obama, and his health aspects. The Chinese know the Columbia University episode....fully and how it was all ‘arranged’. The Chinese know the Obama Health Care episode, and can probably explain it even better than the President. The Chinese know all the folks who have daily contact with the President via his special Blackberry. The Chinese know more about the President, than his wife even knows. All these marijuanna stories of Obama from his youth....likely came from sources who jabbered on lines that the Chinese were listening into.
This dimwit hacker? The Chinese had this guy picked from five or six years ago and knew that he was a problem even then. They cultivated the guy...carefully. They probably were ready last year to spring him into action, with his understanding who was pulling his strings....but they kept him around to time up with this June meeting with President Obama. The topic of cyber warfare at the Palm Springs meeting? It went nowhere, and the President can’t understand how the Chinese know all these bits and pieces.
So here’s the thing. There’s some Chinese guy named Wang who knows more about your financial affairs than you or your wife or your tax accountant or your banker. One day....you will get this cryptic call...suggesting how to climb out of debt. Wang got concerned over your case, and just felt he could help you a bit.
Yeah, there’s a problem, if you start to piece this together.
Privacy World - The WORLD’S SHREWDEST PRIVACY NEWSLETTER
7 Edward Snowden Quotes About U.S. Government Spying That Should Send A Chill Up Your Spine
Would you be willing to give up what Edward Snowden has given up? He has given up his high paying job, his home, his girlfriend, his family, his future and his freedom just to expose the monolithic spy machinery that the U.S. government has been secretly building to the world. He says that he does not want to live in a world where there isn’t any privacy. He says that he does not want to live in a world where everything that he says and does is recorded. Thanks to Snowden, we now know that the U.S. government has been spying on us to a degree that most people would have never even dared to imagine. Up until now, the general public has known very little about the U.S. government spy grid that knows almost everything about us.
But making this information public is going to cost Edward Snowden everything. Essentially, his previous life is now totally over. And if the U.S. government gets their hands on him, he will be very fortunate if he only has to spend the next several decades rotting in some horrible prison somewhere. There is a reason why government whistleblowers are so rare. And most Americans are so apathetic that they wouldn’t even give up watching their favorite television show for a single evening to do something good for society. Most Americans never even try to make a difference because they do not believe that it will benefit them personally. Meanwhile, our society continues to fall apart all around us. Hopefully the great sacrifice that Edward Snowden has made will not be in vain. Hopefully people will carefully consider what he has tried to share with the world. The following are 27 quotes from Edward Snowden about U.S. government spying that should send a chill up your spine...
#1 “The majority of people in developed countries spend at least some time interacting with the Internet, and Governments are abusing that necessity in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate.”
#2 “...I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.”
#3 “The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to.”
#4 “...I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”
#5 “The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything.”
#6 “With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your e-mails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your e-mails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.”
#7 “Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere... I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President...”
#8 “To do that, the NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyzes them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that’s the easiest, most efficient and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government, or someone that they suspect of terrorism, they are collecting YOUR communications to do so.”
#9 “I believe that when [senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people have been scrutinized most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians.”
#10 “...they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known to them.”
#11 “Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. ...it’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life.”
#12 “Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.”
#13 “Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten
- and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state.”
#14 “I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”
#15 “I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy, and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”
#16 “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong.”
#17 “I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.”
#18 “There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich.”
#19 “The great fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. [People] won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things... And in the months ahead, the years ahead, it’s only going to get worse. [The NSA will] say that... because of the crisis, the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny.”
#20 “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”
#21 “You can’t come up against the world’s most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk.”
#22 “I know the media likes to personalize political debates, and I know the government will demonize me.”
#23 “We have got a CIA station just up the road - the consulate here in Hong Kong - and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.”
#24 “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end.”
#25 “There’s no saving me.”
#26 “The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won’t be able to help any more. That’s what keeps me up at night.”
#27 “I do not expect to see home again.”
Would you make the same choice that Edward Snowden made? Most Americans would not. One CNN reporter says that he really admires Snowden because he has tried to get insiders to come forward with details about government spying for years, but none of them were ever willing to...
As a digital technology writer, I have had more than one former student and colleague tell me about digital switchers they have serviced through which calls and data are diverted to government servers or the big data algorithms they’ve written to be used on our e-mails by intelligence agencies. I always begged them to write about it or to let me do so while protecting their identities. They refused to come forward and believed my efforts to shield them would be futile. “I don’t want to lose my security clearance. Or my freedom,” one told me.
And if the U.S. government has anything to say about it, Snowden is most definitely going to pay for what he has done. In fact, according to the Daily Beast, a directorate known as “the Q Group”
is already hunting Snowden down...
The people who began chasing Snowden work for the Associate Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence, according to former U.S. intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity. The directorate, sometimes known as “the Q Group,” is continuing to track Snowden now that he’s outed himself as The Guardian’s source, according to the intelligence officers.
If Snowden is not already under the protection of some foreign government (such as China), it will just be a matter of time before U.S. government agents get him.
And how will they treat him once they find him? Well, one reporter overheard a group of U.S. intelligence officials talking about how Edward Snowden should be “disappeared”. The following is from a Daily Mail article that was posted on Monday...
A group of intelligence officials were overheard yesterday discussing how the National Security Agency worker who leaked sensitive documents to a reporter last week should be ‘disappeared.’
Foreign policy analyst and editor at large of The Atlantic, Steve Clemons, tweeted about the ‘disturbing’ conversation after listening in to four men who were sitting near him as he waited for a flight at Washington’s Dulles airport.
‘In Dulles UAL lounge listening to 4 US intel officials saying loudly leaker & reporter on #NSA stuff should be disappeared recorded a bit,’ he tweeted at 8:42 a.m. on Saturday.
According to Clemons, the men had been attending an event hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
As an American, I am deeply disturbed that the U.S. government is embarrassing itself in front of the rest of the world like this.
The fact that we are collecting trillions of pieces of information on people all over the planet is a massive embarrassment and the fact that our politicians are defending this practice now that it has been exposed is a massive embarrassment.
If the U.S. government continues to act like a Big Brother police state, then the rest of the world will eventually conclude that is exactly what we are. At that point we become the “bad guy” and we lose all credibility with the rest of the planet.
The above by Michael Snyder, Economic Collapse
Until next issue, stay cool and remain low profile!
Privacy World
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