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The National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas. According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government. Instead, the agency appears to have used access legally obtained in cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to open a backdoor to the country’s cellular telephone network, enabling it to covertly record and store the “full-take audio” of every mobile call...

BEIJING -- China on Monday decided to suspend activities of the China-U.S. Cyber Working Group as U.S. announced indictment against five Chinese military officers on allegation of cyber theft. --snip-- Qin said it is a fact criticized by other countries and global media that the US government and relevant departments have long been involved in large-scale and organized cyber theft as well as wiretapping and surveillance activities against foreign political leaders, companies and individuals. China is a victim of severe U.S. cyber theft, wiretapping and surveillance activities. Large amounts of publicly disclosed information show that relevant U.S. institutions have been...

Cisco CEO John Chambers has sent a letter to President Obama calling for rules ensuring that both needs of national security and product integrity are met, according to reports. The Financial Times and Re/code are reporting that Chambers sent a letter dated May 15 to Obama, warning that confidence in an open Internet is being "eroded by revelations of governments' surveillance" and asking him to create new standards of conduct about how the government collects data. "Absent a new approach where industry plays a role, but in which you, Mr. President, can lead, we are concerned that our country's global...

Rather than cowing the IRS into cooperating with Congressional inquiries, the House's citing former IRS official Lois Lerner with contempt seems to have emboldened further resistance. “The notion that this 'slap-on-the-wrist' is going to make us turn on our friends is ludicrous,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. At issue is correspondence between the IRS and high-ranking Democrats--including Sen. Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Reid (D-NV), Sen. Bennet (D-CO), Sen. Landrieu (D-LA), Sen. Pryor (D-AR), Sen. Hagan (D-NC), Sen. Begich (D-AK), Sen. Shaheen (D-NH), Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), Sen. Franken (D-MN), Sen. Warner (D-VA), Rep. Braley (D-Iowa) and Rep. Peters (D-MI)--who are alleged...

“We Kill People Based on Metadata,” Admits Former CIA/NSA Boss Written by Alex Newman font size decrease font size increase font size Print E-mail “We Kill People Based on Metadata,” Admits Former CIA/NSA Boss Essentially confessing to mass murder and multiple other crimes, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, the former boss of both the NSA and the CIA, admitted that the Obama administration has been murdering people around the world based solely on the so-called metadata collected by U.S. intelligence agencies. The controversial insider’s remarks confirmed growing fears and warnings by critics of the out-of-control federal government that, despite efforts to...

Law professors Jonathan Turley of George Washington University and Nicholas Rosenkranz of Georgetown slammed President Obama’s “muscular presidency” as dangerously unconstitutional. The Federalist Society hosted these speakers in a panel discussion entitled, “Suspension of Laws: What are the Limits of Executive Authority?” jonathan turley Turley said that President Obama has completely ignored and “circumvented” Congress. After all of Obama’s rhetoric, speeches and subsequent actions, Turley said, “The irony is that he didn’t have to circumvent Congress” to achieve his own goals. As a law professor at George Washington, he could only say, “I’m left scratching my head” in trying to...

The NSA has been covertly implanting interception tools in US servers heading overseas – even though the US government has warned against using Chinese technology for the same reasons, says Glenn Greenwald, in an extract from his new book about the Snowden affair, No Place to Hide For years, the US government loudly warned the world that Chinese routers and other internet devices pose a "threat" because they are built with backdoor surveillance functionality that gives the Chinese government the ability to spy on anyone using them. Yet what the NSA's documents show is that Americans have been engaged in...

Sen. Ted Cruz says a Justice Department request that a federal judge dismiss a class-action lawsuit filed by Sen. Rand Paul against the National Security Agency is based on "highly dubious" legal grounds. Kentucky Republican Paul filed the suit in the aftermath of revelations about the agency’s mass collection of personal information through its top-secret phone and Internet surveillance program. Texas Republican Cruz issued a statement on Wednesday after Justice Department lawyers argued the case should be dismissed because Paul could not prove that his phone records were collected by the agency nor did he offer "sufficient well-pleaded, non-conclusory allegations...

"How do you know you are doing nothing that could be construed as wrong by some state functionary? How do you know you are not breaking some law somewhere? And why are you so implicitly trusting that your government would never do anything evil with the information it has collected on you? "This is not purely an academic matter. The practical implications are profound." Entire article here: http://wp.me/p13mHb-1fH

President Barack Obama is attending high-dollar Democratic Party fundraisers hosted by Silicon Valley executives, drawing attention to the complicated relationship between the president and the high-tech industry. The revelations of National Security Agency spying have created an outcry from tech companies whose data have been gathered by the government. Obama has had to reassure Internet and tech executives that he is committed to protecting privacy. …

(Reuters) - Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed the U.S. government's data collection programs, is now likely under the control of Russian intelligence agencies, according to former NSA Director, General Keith Alexander. Alexander, who retired on March 31, made the comments in an interview with The Australian Financial Review newspaper to be published on Thursday, a transcript of which was made available to Reuters ahead of publication.

Oops, your metadata is showing. Is the Government violating your Constitutional rights by intercepting your “metadata” without a warrant? The Government is collecting information about your phone calls, text messages, and email messages -- indiscriminately. Metadata is transmission and billing information about whom you called, from what phone number, when, and for how long. This can include your location, because billing records note which cell tower your mobile phone is connecting through. George Orwell’s book 1984 was meant as a warning. But it is shocking how many people view 1984 as a “how to” manual or blueprint for expanding their...

There was a time when Angela Merkel was committed to investigating the extent of NSA spying in Germany. Now, though, the chancellor has made an about face. Trans-Atlantic unity is her new priority, and the investigation has been left to languish. In the world of diplomacy, moments of candor are rare, obscured as they are behind a veil of amicability and friendly gestures. It was no different last Friday at the meeting between US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington. Obama welcomed Merkel by calling her "one of my closest partners" and a "friend" and took...

A computer expert from eastern Germany claims to have hacked the homepage of the US National Security Agency (NSA), leaving a message on the site for American security experts. Matthias Ungethüm from Saxony said on Friday he had replaced the NSA slogan “Codebreakers and Codemakers” with the German phrase “Durchleuchten Sie Ihre Homepage”—“Examine your homepage" on the website of America’s security agency. …

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama on Friday (2 May) are poised to mend ties after the exposure of her phone being tapped and millions of Germans spied upon by the National Security Agency (NSA). […] Rather than seeking a bilateral deal, Germany is now eyeing an international effort at EU and UN level. “This is an tough nut to crack over the next years,” another German official said. …

In January, the Obama administration put together a "working group" to analyze how huge swaths of Americans' data are being gathered and stored and what sort of privacy issues need to be addressed. The group's report was just released this week. Before you ask: No, it's not about the National Security Agency (NSA) sweeping up huge amounts of metadata from phone and online communications by Americans, even though that’s the big data conversation many Americans want to have right now. Such data gathering is vaguely mentioned in the full report, but primarily the 85-page study (pdf) is about consumer privacy...

The White House has asked legislators crafting competing reforms of the National Security Agency to provide legal immunity for telecommunications firms that provide the government with customer data, the Guardian has learned. In a statement of principles privately delivered to lawmakers some weeks ago to guide surveillance reforms, the White House said it wanted legislation protecting “any person who complies in good faith with an order to produce records” from legal liability for complying with court orders for phone records to the government once the NSA no longer collects the data in bulk. The brief request, contained in a four-page...

Tommy Vietor – Former NSA Spokesman – Admits Obama Never Made it to Situation Room During Benghazi Attack Now we know that Barack Obama was in the White House but NEVER MADE IT to the Situation Room the night of the Benghazi Attack on 9-11 2012. This was after Islamists stormed the US Embassy in Cairo earlier in the day. Obama never made it to the Situation Room. Tommy Vietor was there. Obama wasn’t. Tommy Vietor: I was in the Situation Room that night. Ok. And we didn’t know where the ambassador was. Definitively. Bret Baier: Was the president in...

The NSA has lost the trust of the American people as a result of the Edward Snowden leaks, and needs to be more transparent to gain it back, the NSA's new director said Wednesday in his first public comments since taking control of the embattled spy agency. "I tell the [NSA] workforce out there as the new guy, let’s be honest with each other, the nation has lost a measure of trust in us," Admiral Michael Rogers told a conference of the Women in Aerospace conference in Crystal City, Va.... Rogers didn't lay complete responsibility at the doorstep of the...

The key weapon in their arsenal of obedience is technology and the mega-corporations that control the flow of information disseminated to the hypnotized mindless masses. The United States has devolved into a society where a few powerful unelected unaccountable men, controlling the levers of government, education, finance, and media are able to formulate the opinions, tastes, beliefs, and fears of the masses through the effective and subtle use of technology. They have tenaciously and unflinchingly fashioned a technology addiction among the masses in order to keep them distracted, entertained and uninterested in thinking, gaining knowledge, or comprehending their roles and...