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Keyword: nsa

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  • NSA to shut down bulk phone surveillance program on Sunday-two and a half years after it was exposed

    The move, mandated by a law passed six months ago, represents the greatest reduction of U.S. spying capabilities since they expanded dramatically after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Under the Freedom Act, the NSA and law enforcement agencies can no longer collect telephone-calling records in bulk in an effort to sniff out suspicious activity. Such records, known as 'metadata,' reveal which numbers Americans are calling and what time they place those calls, but not the content of the conversations. Instead analysts must now get a court order to ask telecommunications companies like Verizon Communications to enable monitoring of call records...
  • Will Senator Cruz Follow Reagan’s Lead on the NSA?

    11/25/2015 7:26:51 AM PST · by Twotone · 5 replies
    Accuracy in Media ^ | Nov. 24, 2015 | Cliff Kincaid
    Craig Shirley, author of Last Act: The Final Years and Emerging Legacy of Ronald Reagan, is an impressive writer with a vast knowledge of Reagan's terms as president who has nonetheless gotten a very important part of Reagan's legacy wrong. Shirley has written about how Reagan would have reacted to the Paris massacre by enlisting today's "Christian Russia" and "free market China" in a coalition against Islamic terrorism.
  • Cold War spy Ronald Pelton freed from federal custody

    11/24/2015 5:40:07 PM PST · by markomalley · 13 replies
    Stars & Stripes / AP ^ | 11/24/15 | Eric Tucker
    A former National Security Agency employee convicted of selling defense and communication secrets he gained during his career has been released from federal custody 30 years after his arrest. The sentence for Cold War-era spy Ronald Pelton, 74, ended on Tuesday. He had been placed on home confinement several months ago to serve out the final stretch of his sentence and was released Tuesday from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, agency spokesman Ed Ross said. Pelton, a former NSA intelligence communications specialist, was arrested in November 1985 on charges of selling information to the Soviets about signals intelligence...
  • Did U.S. 'fake' intel on real ISIS threat?

    11/23/2015 11:23:54 AM PST · by amorphous · 18 replies
    WND ^ | 23 Nov 2015
    Some of President Obama's top military officials are the subject of an expanded investigation into intelligence reports that were possibly doctored to paint a rosy picture of progress made in rooting out ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq. At issue is whether analysts at Central Command, which oversees U.S. Department of Defense operations in the Middle East, altered assessments of the campaign against ISIS to make it appear as though the United States and Western partners were making more progress than they really were, at least according to claims from a whistleblower assigned to Centcom, ABC News reported. A whistleblower...
  • US Congresswoman Introduces Bill To Stop "Illegal" War On Assad; Says CIA Ops Must Stop

    11/21/2015 4:41:30 PM PST · by amorphous · 54 replies
    Zero Hedge ^ | 21 Nov 2015 | Tyler
    Last month, US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard went on CNN and laid bare Washington’s Syria strategy. In a remarkably candid interview with Wolf Blitzer, Gabbard calls Washington’s effort to oust Assad "counterproductive” and “illegal" before taking it a step further and accusing the CIA of arming the very same terrorists who The White House insists are "sworn enemies." In short, Gabbard all but tells the American public that the government is lying to them and may end up inadvertently starting "World War III."
  • Rubio Links Cruz To Snowden

    11/19/2015 11:48:22 AM PST · by zeestephen · 27 replies
    The Weekly Standard ^ | 17 November 2015 | Michael Warren
    Marco Rubio: "At least two of my colleagues in the Senate aspiring to the presidency, Senator Cruz in particular, have voted to weaken the U.S. intelligence programs just in the last month and a half," Rubio said, referring to the passage of the USA Freedom Act that ended government's ability to hold on to bulk amounts of metadata.
  • Rubio says Cruz hurt US intelligence programs with stance

    11/18/2015 5:04:22 PM PST · by Olog-hai · 53 replies
    Associated Press ^ | Nov. 18, 2015 7:47 PM EST | Sergio Bustos
    Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio says his rival Ted Cruz worked with Democrats to harm U.S. intelligence programs by restricting the federal government's bulk phone records collection program. [...] Cruz voted in favor of a bill Congress approved last June that killed the National Security Agency's disputed bulk phone records collection program. ...
  • DOJ says Apple should be forced to unlock encrypted user data if asked by government

    10/25/2015 6:38:49 PM PDT · by Swordmaker · 77 replies
    9 to 5 Mac ^ | October 24, 2014 | By Chance Miller
    Earlier this week, Apple stated that it would be nearly impossible for it to access the data on a passcode-locked iOS device running iOS 8 or later. The company also noted, however, that even if it were possible, it would not feel comfortable doing so as to not tarnish the trust it shares with its customers. The Department of Justice has now dismissed that argument, saying that Apple should be required to unlock encrypted data because iOS is “licensed, not sold” to customers (via DailyDot). “Apple designed, manufactured, and sold [the phone] that is the subject of the search warrant,” the government...
  • FBI confiscates 4 State Dept. servers

    10/13/2015 11:01:42 PM PDT · by Rabin · 17 replies
    World Tribune Life ^ | October 13, 2015 | Bill Gertz
    The FBI has seized nine White House computer servers as part of its probe into how classified information was compromised on State Department email system, according to people familiar with the investigation. Additionally six servers, which were located at the NSA Fort Mead headquarters building, were seized. They are being checked by technical analysts charged with determining how all communications to and from the state department were being routed via homeline parallel Soviet, and Clinton Foundation pathways as standard procedure, even prior to 2009 to 2013, said two people familiar with the probe. The people spoke on condition of anonymity....
  • Bill Clinton and CIA Gave Iranians Blueprint for Nuclear Bomb

    04/14/2006 6:32:01 AM PDT · by RepublicNewbie · 26 replies · 2,549+ views
    The Post Chronicle ^ | 4/14/06 | Jim Kouri
    Last night, radio talk show host and former US Justice Department official Mark Levin shocked many listeners when he reported that President Bill Clinton gave nuclear technology to the Iranians in a harebrained scheme. He said that the transfer of classified data to Iran was personally approved by then-President Clinton and that the CIA deliberately gave Iranian physicists blueprints for part of a nuclear bomb that likely helped Tehran advance its nuclear weapons development program. The CIA, using a double-agent Russian scientist, handed a blueprint for a nuclear bomb to Iran, according to a new book "State of War" by...
  • The White House Backs Down On Phone Encryption

    10/10/2015 9:50:27 PM PDT · by Swordmaker · 8 replies
    TechCrunch ^ | October 10, 2015 | by Cat Zakrzewski
    In a victory for tech firms, the Obama administration will not force firms to breach the security of their products in order to provide information to law enforcement.The decision comes after a year after encryption introduced on iPhones and some Android phones sparked a debate between law enforcement and tech companies over access to phone data. With iOS 8, most data stored on the phone and communications over services like iMessage were encrypted in a way that only users could access it — not even Apple could.FBI director James Comey then sounded the alarm that phone encryption would prevent law enforcement...
  • Judge declines to order Apple to disable security on device seized by U.S.

    10/10/2015 9:25:02 PM PDT · by Swordmaker · 6 replies
    Newsday ^ | October 9, 2015 8:38 PM | By JOHN RILEY
    A federal magistrate in Brooklyn is temporarily refusing to order Apple to disable security on a device seized by the government, citing Congress' failure to act on the hot-button issue of encryption despite urging from law enforcement officials. "Congress has done nothing that would remotely suggest an intent to force Apple, in the circumstances of this case, to provide the assistance the government now requests," U.S. Magistrate James Orenstein said in his ruling, posted on the court's website Thursday afternoon. "Several of its members have introduced legislation to prohibit exactly what the government now asks the court to compel." ....
  • Fort Meade residents asked to stay in their homes amid police activity

    10/07/2015 8:10:33 PM PDT · by VanShuyten · 6 replies
    WMAR Baltimore ABC 2 ^ | Oct 7, 2015 | WMAR Baltimore
    Police activity on the Fort George G. Meade campus has forced those living on the installation to remain in their homes. Fort officials posted a message on Facebook asking residents to report suspicious activity. (See below) Sources say 10 police cars and a helicopter are patrolling the base after someone crashed a car into a gate leading into the base. The suspect then bailed from the car.
  • Monica Lewinsky lawyer named as first outsider on secret US spy court (Preston Burton)

    09/29/2015 3:55:40 PM PDT · by dayglored · 13 replies
    The Register ^ | Sep 29, 2015 | Kieren McCarthy
    One of Monica Lewinsky's former lawyers will be the first outside advisor to America's secret court that oversees NSA spying. Preston Burton was chosen as the first of five advocates who will provide expert advice to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) when discussing whether to approve spying programs. His first job will be to advise the FISC on whether the US government should be allowed to retain data past November 28, when the telephone storage program run by the NSA under Section 215 of the Patriot Act is officially shut down. Burton has a lively roster of ex-clients, ranging...
  • What If Russia’s Foreign Minister Conducted Official Business on an Unsecured Private Server?

    09/25/2015 11:48:02 AM PDT · by mojito · 15 replies
    Powerline ^ | 9/24/2015 | John Hinderaker
    Today Admiral Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, testified before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee on cybersecurity. Senator Tom Cotton asked him two questions, the second of which was brilliant: 1) Are the communications of the president’s most senior advisors, including those that may be unclassified, a “top priority for foreign intelligence services?” and 2) What would he think if he learned that Russia’s Foreign Minister, or Iran’s, was conducting official business on a homebrew server? Here it is:
  • NSA surveillance bill passes after weeks-long showdown (Big Brother/1984 Alert)

    09/08/2015 9:40:58 AM PDT · by Enlightened1 · 9 replies
    CNN ^ | 09/07/15 | Jeremy Diamond
    The National Security Agency lost its authority to collect the phone records of millions of Americans, thanks to a new reform measure Congress passed on Tuesday. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on Tuesday evening. It is the first piece of legislation to reform post 9/11 surveillance measures. "It's historical," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, one of the leading architects of the reform efforts. "It's the first major overhaul of government surveillance in decades." The weeks-long buildup to the final vote was full of drama. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul assailed the NSA in a 10-hour speech that roused...
  • The CEO and the CIA (Fiorina)

    09/06/2015 7:29:34 AM PDT · by RoosterRedux · 8 replies
    NRO ^ | Jim Geraghty
    One week after 9/11, Michael Hayden, the director of the National Security Agency, the electronic surveillance arm of the U.S. government, had a long list of problems. High on the list was the fact that the NSA needed a ton of new high-tech equipment, particularly servers, right away, to handle a vastly expanded, critically important workload. Hayden called up the CEO of Hewlett Packard, Carly Fiorina. “HP made precisely the equipment we needed, and we needed in bulk,” says Robert Deitz, who was general counsel at the NSA from 1998 to 2006. Deitz recalls that a tractor-trailer full of HP...
  • Microsoft backports data slurp to Windows 7 and 8 via patches (Win 10 spyware comes to 7, 8.1)

    09/01/2015 9:49:09 PM PDT · by dayglored · 45 replies
    The Register ^ | Sep 1, 2015 | Andrew Orlowski
    We recently mused, half seriously, whether the entire point of the Windows 10 upgrade was to harvest your personal information. With Microsoft suffering from a serious case of Google envy, perhaps it felt it had some catching up to do. Now Microsoft is revamping the user-tracking tools in Windows 7 and 8 to harvest more data, via some new patches. All the updates can be removed post-installation – but all ensure the OS reports data to Microsoft even when asked not to, bypassing the hosts file and (hence) third-party privacy tools. This data can include how long you use apps,...
  • Rand Champions the Constitution at Utah Campaign Event

    08/29/2015 10:45:28 PM PDT · by z taxman · 24 replies
    The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | Aug. 29, 2015 | Brian Maffly
    Orem • Rand Paul brought his message of limited government and strict observance of the U.S. Constitution to Utah Saturday. A crowd of several hundred applauded his call to stand up for all 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights — not just the one protecting gun rights. "You can't support the Second Amendment unless you protect the Fourth," the GOP presidential candidate said, referring to the constitutional prohibition against unlawful search and seizure. That applause line was the Kentucky senator's segue into his intense opposition to blanket data-gathering on U.S. citizens — a key pillar of his long-shot campaign....
  • Snowden Warned Norway He faced Death in US

    08/29/2015 12:31:09 AM PDT · by nickcarraway · 8 replies
    The Local ^ | 28 Aug 2015
    NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden warned Norway that he faced a possible death sentence if returned to the United States in the extradition request he made in 2012. Snowden may get freedom prize at border (28 Aug 15) US asked Norway to arrest Edward Snowden (27 Aug 15) “I believe that…it is unlikely that I would receive a fair trial or proper treatment prior to the trial, and face the possibility of life imprisonment, and even death,” he wrote in the extradition letter, a copy of which has been obtained by Norway's NRK channel. The letter was sent by fax to...