As Europe erupts over US spying, NSA chief says government must stop media
Glenn Greenwald
London Guardian
October 26, 2013
Source
With General Alexander calling for NSA reporting to be halted, US and UK credibility as guardians of press freedom is crushed.
In what might be the most explicit hostility to such freedoms yet – as well as the most unmistakable evidence of rampant panic – the NSA’s director, General Keith Alexander, actually demanded Thursday that the reporting being done by newspapers around the world on this secret surveillance system be halted.
The head of the embattled National Security Agency, Gen Keith Alexander, is accusing journalists of “selling” his agency’s documents and is calling for an end to the steady stream of public disclosures of secrets snatched by former contractor Edward Snowden.
“I think it’s wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 – whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn’t make sense,” Alexander said in an interview with the Defense Department’s “Armed With Science” blog.
“We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don’t know how to do that. That’s more of the courts and the policy-makers but, from my perspective, it’s wrong to allow this to go on,” the NSA director declared. [My italics]
There are 25,000 employees of the NSA (and many tens of thousands more who work for private contracts assigned to the agency). Maybe one of them can tell The General about this thing called “the first amendment”.
I’d love to know what ways, specifically, General Alexander has in mind for empowering the US government to “come up with a way of stopping” the journalism on this story. Whatever ways those might be, they are deeply hostile to the US constitution – obviously. What kind of person wants the government to forcibly shut down reporting by the press?
For entire article: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/25/europe-erupts-nsa-spying-chief-government
Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center
Oct. 7, 2013 7:31 p.m. ET
By SIOBHAN GORMAN
| An aerial view of the NSA’s Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah. Associated Press |
Investigators Stumped by What’s Causing Power Surges That Destroy Equipment.
Washington Wire
For the entire article: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304441404579119490744478398
SOME FLORIDA POLICE ARE USING DATA TO PREDICT CRIME
October 24, 2013
BY: NEAL UNGERLEIDERSource
“WE’RE ENTERING A NEW ERA OF POLICE WORK,” SAYS THE FORT LAUDERDALE POLICE CHIEF.
Armed agents seize records of reporter, Washington Times prepares legal actionGuy Taylor
The Washington Times
October 26, 2013
Source
Maryland state police and federal agents used a search warrant in an unrelated criminal investigation to seize the private reporting files of an award-winning former investigative journalist for The Washington Times who had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department’s Federal Air Marshal Service.
http://youtu.be/2mAHdOsDYVA
Michael Savage interviews reporter Audrey Hudson, raided by armed government agents.
Reporter Audrey Hudson said the investigators, who included an agent for Homeland’s Coast Guard service, took her private notes and government documents that she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a predawn raid of her family home on Aug. 6.
The documents, some which chronicled her sources and her work at the Times about problems inside the Homeland Security Department, were seized under a warrant to search for unregistered firearms and a “potato gun” suspected of belonging to her husband, Paul Flanagan, a Coast Guard employee. Mr. Flanagan has not been charged with any wrongdoing since the raid.
The warrant, obtained by the Times, offered no specific permission to seize reporting notes or files.
For entire article: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/25/armed-agents-seize-records-reporter-washington-tim/
Leaked Video: FEMA Preparing Military Police For Gun Confiscations and Martial Law
October 26, 2013
Kit Daniels
Infowars.com
U.S. Army MP told Constitution may be suspended by Homeland Security.
Infowars has confirmed the identity and authenticity of the source of the video below as a member of the U.S. Army military police in Arizona.
The video, shot in September 2013, shows an army commander briefing the MPs on their new command structure under the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security for domestic operations with the National Guard.
The MP began recording the exchange after being shocked to hear that they were now under FEMA control.
In this video you can clearly hear the commander discuss the suspension of the Constitution for martial law and gun confiscations in America.
In essence, the military police is to provide security for FEMA while the agency confiscates our guns during a government-declared domestic crisis.
“They did that in Katrina, right,” the commander said. “They just go on and take away people’s guns.”
This is yet another piece of the larger pattern of demonization of gun owners, libertarians, conservatives, Christians and anyone who will not bow down to enslavement by a hijacked government occupied by ruthless tyrants who desire only total control.
We’ve already seen gun confiscations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005:
The hijacked federal government has been meticulously preparing for martial law at a breakneck speed.
Last year, a leaked U.S. Army manual entitled FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations outlined the responsibilities of army “PSYOP” officers to indoctrinate “political activists” into having an “appreciation of U.S. policies” while they are detained at detention camps within America.
Another training manual demonized Americans who embrace individual liberties as potential “extremists” and even referred to the Founding Fathers as examples of “extremists” in history.
The U.S. Army Civil Disturbance Operations manual from 2006 broke down how military assets on U.S. soil will be used to confiscate firearms, put down riots and even kill Americans.
This manual listed weapons to be used against American “dissidents,” including “anti-riot” grenades, and emphasized that “warning shots will not be fired.”
Earlier this year, Law Enforcement Targets, Inc., a provider of shooting targets to DHS and other federal agencies, sold a line of realistic-looking “non-traditional” targets of pregnant women, children and the elderly.
One target in particular depicted a pregnant woman standing inside a nursery.
These targets are designed to condition law enforcement into shooting these American “threats” without hesitation.
In addition to buying shooting targets of Americans, DHS also bought two billion rounds of ammunition for domestic operations last year.
This excessive amount, enough to sustain the war in Iraq for 24 years, will ensure the rapid expansion of the police state during the civil chaos caused by the likely economic collapse of America.
We’ve already seen a police state takeover after the Boston Bombings, when armored police went door-to-door to enter and search homes without a warrant.The hijacked federal government is simply shedding our constitutional republic and purging what remains of our liberties while demonizing anyone who stands in the way.
Police militarization expo Urban Shield descends on Oakland (VIDEO)
Source: http://rt.com/usa/urban-shield-police-militarization-762/
Leaked memos reveal GCHQ efforts to keep mass surveillance secretGuy Taylor
London Guardian
October 26, 2013
Source
The UK intelligence agency GCHQ has repeatedly warned it fears a “damaging public debate” on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programmes, classified internal documents reveal.
Memos contained in the cache disclosed by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the agency’s long fight against making intercept evidence admissible as evidence in criminal trials – a policy supported by all three major political parties, but ultimately defeated by the UK’s intelligence community.
Foremost among the reasons was a desire to minimise the potential for challenges against the agency’s large-scale interception programmes, rather than any intrinsic threat to security, the documents show.
Just this week, the Ex-GCHQ chief Sir David Omand claimed ‘Nobody is reading all your emails’
The papers also reveal that:
• GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone “well beyond” what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies’ mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas.
• GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissible in court.
For the entire article: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/25/leaked-memos-gchq-mass-surveillance-secret-snowden
‘Time to reform surveillance state’: Stop Watching Us rally challenges NSA spying
Published time: October 26, 2013 23:49
Edited time: October 27, 2013 09:03
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| A demonstarator holds up a sign at the “Stop Watching Us: A Rally Against Mass Surveillance” march near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 26, 2013. (Reuters / Jonathan Ernst) |
Twelve years after Americans were stripped of their rights in the name of fighting terrorism, thousands have gathered in Washington DC to protest unconstitutional NSA spying programs revealed by Edward Snowden, and call for repeal of the Patriot Act.
Stop Watching Us campaign demands reform of “Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the US is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court.”
RT’s TIMELINE of the ‘Stop Watching Us’ event
Protesters also demand the creation of an investigative committee charged with reporting the extent of domestic spying and enact regulatory reform. Organizers also want to hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for “unconstitutional surveillance.”
United under a banner reading “Thank You Snowden” thousands lined the Capitol to hear a statement by former NSA contractor read out.
“Today, no telephone in America makes a call without leaving a record with the NSA. Today, no Internet transaction enters or leaves America without passing through the NSA’s hands. Our representatives in Congress tell us this is not surveillance. They’re wrong,” Snowden said in a statement read out by Former US Department of Justice ethics adviser, Jesselyn Radack.
“This is about the unconstitutional, unethical, and immoral actions of the modern-day surveillance state and how we all must work together to remind government to stop them. It’s about our right to know, to associate freely, and to live in an open society,” Snowden said.
Twelve large boxes of 575,000 petition signatures were shown to the crowd at the foot of the US Capitol.
Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who worked with Edward Snowden to expose many of the NSA’s surveillance procedures attended the rally.
“It is very important that people speak out, take action, march, rally demonstrate against these practices of the government,” anti-war activist Richard Becker told RT. “What can really bring a change is the actions of the people,” he said, stressing that “none of the progressive changes” in the history of the US have ever been “originated inside the Congress or in the White House”.
Congressional representative Justin Amash told the crowd that bringing his anti-NSA bill in July to Congress was his proudest moment as an elected official.
“We’re going to keep fighting and we’re going to pass something to rein in the NSA,” he said, adding that the “NSA is fighting back, the establishment is fighting back.”
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| Demonstarators carry signs at the “Stop Watching Us: A Rally Against Mass Surveillance” march near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 26, 2013. (Reuters / Jonathan Ernst) |
Former politicians Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson also attended the anti-NSA protest.
“The government has granted itself power that it does not have,” said Johnson. “We have to stand against this.”
“Our own government has become a threat to freedom, at home and abroad,” said former Congressman, Dennis Kucinich.
Whistleblower Thomas Drake in addressing the crowd said that he was fortunate not end up in prison.“The last thing a free and open society needs is a digital fence around us,” Drake said. He called for the restoration of the Fourth Amendment and said that NSA surveillance “engenders fear and erodes our freedom.”
Two days before the march the US Department of Defense published a YouTube interview with NSA Director and CYCOM Commander General Keith Alexander trying to justify the agency’s programs. So far less than 2 percent of viewers agree with Alexander’s reasoning for the need for total surveillance and spying on own citizens to protect national security.
A day after the release, the website for the US National Security Agency suddenly went offline in what some claimed was an Anonymous DDoS attack. Twelve hours later the NSA however said it was due to a technical problem during a routine software update, denying it was under attack.
The Edward Snowden leaks have exposed that NSA not only spied on public records but also on data mined from personal communications of world leaders, including Latin American presidents and European leaders – even those who are considered to be US allies, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel who was on NSA spy list since 2002, according to latest revelations.
The Stop Watching Us rally comes as twenty-one countries, including US allies France and Mexico, have joined talks to hammer out a UN resolution that would condemn “indiscriminate” and “extra-territorial”surveillance, and ensure “independent oversight” of electronic monitoring.
Other countries involved in the talks reportedly include Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Liechtenstein, Norway, Paraguay, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Source: http://rt.com/usa/stop-watching-us-rally-791/
Germany, Brazil enlist 19 more countries for anti-NSA UN resolution
Published time: October 26, 2013 19:05
Edited time: October 27, 2013 22:10
Joshua Lott / Getty Images / AFP
Twenty-one countries, including US allies France and Mexico, have now joined talks to hammer out a UN resolution that would condemn “indiscriminate” and “extra-territorial” surveillance, and ensure “independent oversight” of electronic monitoring.
The news was reported by Foreign Policy magazine, which has also obtained a copy of the draft text.
The resolution was proposed earlier this week by Germany and Brazil, whose leaders have been some of the most vocal critics of the comprehensive spying methods of the US National Security Agency.
It appears to have gained additional traction after the Guardian newspaper published an internal NSA memo sourced from whistleblower Edward Snowden on Friday, which revealed that at least 35 heads of state had their phones tapped by American intelligence officials.
One of those is likely German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Earlier this week the White House failed to deny that her personal cell phone had been tapped in the past, though it claims that it no longer listens in on Merkel’s private conversations.
Other countries involved in the talks reportedly include Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Liechtenstein, Norway, Paraguay, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Navanethem Pillay – United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
While the document does not single out the US as the chief electronic spy, its text seems to be a direct response to alleged NSA practices.
The draft says that UN member states are “deeply concerned at human rights violations and abuses that may result from the conduct of extra-territorial surveillance or interception of communications in foreign jurisdictions.”
Snowden’s leaks over the past months have revealed that NSA intercepts data directly from data cables stationed around the world. Internal documents also showed that American intelligence staff did not need a warrant or any other legal basis to freely spy on a non-US citizen.
The proposed document also claims that “illegal surveillance of private communications and the indiscriminate interception of personal data of citizens constitutes a highly intrusive act that violates the rights to freedom of expression and privacy and threatens the foundations of a democratic society.”
As opposed to the targeted spying of the past, where agencies would tap a specific phone or intercept letters addressed to a person, new technologies mean that almost all data that passes through the internet is saved onto the NSA servers. This includes private emails, web searches, and personal data of billions of people. NSA agents then fish out the needed information with precise searches.
The resolution, which is expected to be presented in front of the U.N. General Assembly human rights committee before the end of the year, turns NSA’s activities into an issue of fundamental rights as opposed to international diplomacy, requiring the High Commissioner for Human Rights to produce a report on the problem. The draft also asks to institute “independent oversight mechanisms” that would curb the untrammelled surveillance, though it does not specify how such a secretive activity could be effectively supervised.
Source: http://rt.com/news/nsa-un-resolution-talks-788/
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