Tag Archives: NSA

So Minor…

04 Friday Sep 2020

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NSA spying is illegal and might violate something called the … constitution(???). So says the Ninth Circus:

The National Security Agency program that swept up details on billions of Americans’ phone calls was illegal and possibly unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

However, the unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the role the so-called telephone metadata program played in a criminal terror-fundraising case against four Somali immigrants was so minor that it did not undermine their convictions.

Well, thank God. How’s that for governance? A criminal government imports incompatible third world terrorists, and then spies on them (and you!), but not in a way that would undermine convictions. If you’re scratching your head on this one, relax, you’re sane. And, yes, it would have been much easier and morally sound to not spy on us and not gather unto these shores the garbage of the world that hates us. Remember that should you be lucky enough to participate in the rebuilding.

Mr. Snowden, Thank You for Your Service

31 Friday Jan 2020

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Remember Snowden? The “traitor” who endangered all those whatevers by blowing the whistle on the rampant abuse of civil liberties by the government? A bill is floating to reign in some of the abuse.

A bipartisan cadre of lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced legislation that would reform the 9/11-era authorities used by the intelligence community to access Americans’ phone records and other domestic communications.

The Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act would narrow Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which provided the National Security Agency and sister intelligence agencies sweeping information-gathering authorities following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. According to lawmakers, the bill would end the phone surveillance program that would ensnare Americans’ phone records and prohibit the warrantless collection of location data. The bill would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, adding transparency to secretive court processes that decide whether to surveil individuals.

While previous presidential administrations and Congresses have continually renewed the authorities, privacy advocates have voiced increasing opposition to the authorities, which allow for records and data to be vacuumed up without a warrant. The program was first exposed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

In a statement, Sen. Ron Wyden, D, Ore., said the bill “preserves authorities the government uses against criminals and terrorists, while putting Americans’ constitutional rights front and center.” A companion bill has been introduced in the House, led by Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio.

9/11 and the “PATRIOT” Act were scams. Time to take it back. It would be better to abolish the NSA and the CIA (and the whole FedGov), but this is a start.

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BIG! – NSA Recommends Dropping Phone Surveillance Program…. — The Last Refuge

24 Wednesday Apr 2019

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This will be a Trump sanity test. Why on earth would he reauthorize a program that spies(d) on all Americans in general and him in particular?

Perhaps the weaponization of the NSA database was the biggest research project we ever took on. That said, CTH prudence requires a lack of commentary. For a background on this story see the [“SIDE NOTE“] previously presented HERE. “The candle is not worth the flame.” (WASHINGTON DC) The National Security Agency has recommended that the […]

via BIG! – NSA Recommends Dropping Phone Surveillance Program…. — The Last Refuge

Is There a Really Big, Ugly Building in Your Town?

26 Tuesday Jun 2018

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It might just be a big, ugly building. Or, it could be one of the NSA’s special spy centers:

Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. In each of these cities, The Intercept has identified an AT&T facility containing networking equipment that transports large quantities of internet traffic across the United States and the world. A body of evidence – including classified NSA documents, public records, and interviews with several former AT&T employees – indicates that the buildings are central to an NSA spying initiative that has for years monitored billions of emails, phone calls, and online chats passing across U.S. territory.

Big ugly buildings. Big, ugly purpose. Just kidding! Keeping the kiddies safe from cigars or whales or something…

I know I’ve covered this subject before … the first disclosed tower in NYC. Can’t find it. Hmm. Sure the NSA has a record of that somewhere.

Screenshot 2018-06-26 at 11.49.09 AM

The Intercept.

Mike Cernovich on the Absurd Reality Winner (Real Name) Case

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

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I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this whole thing feels like an episode from The Twilight Zone…

YouTube looted video from Periscope.

Cerno is brilliant and he can’t put his finger on it yet. Can anyone?

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Crazy agency. Crazy administrators. A crazy investigation. A crazy leak by a crossfit crazy with a crazy name. Call me crazy but there is just some little thing out of place here.

“Tangerine in Chief” – that’s funny, I don’t care who you are.

Hmmmm…..

Big Brother Forever! On With the FISA 702 Extension

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

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This would be the same Trump administration that, just a short while ago, complained about being spied upon by this very program…

The Trump administration endorsed a full extension of the intelligence community’s most controversial snooping powers Wednesday, saying that the public has gotten the wrong impression about tools that are designed to target foreigners but, increasingly, have ensnared Americans as well.

Thomas P. Bossert, President Trump’s top counterterrorism adviser, in an op-ed in the New York Times, said they are backing a new bill introduced this week to permanently extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — the part of the law that allows snooping.

Mr. Bossert said the public will have to trust the government’s assertions that the program is valuable, since most of its successes have to remain classified. But he said Section 702 intelligence helped thwart the New York City subway bombing plot.

“Simply put, the use of this authority has helped save lives,” Mr. Bossert wrote.
Section 702 allows intelligence agencies to collect vast amounts of information from foreign sources located outside the U.S. as part of antiterrorism investigations. Communications with Americans can, however, be snared.

The section is slated to expire at the end of this year, and security hawks and civil liberties advocates are now battling over whether to extend it.

Extended it shall be! “Trust us, we’re from the government.”

Undoubtedly the program may have saved some lives. Others seem to have fallen between the cracks. There was that …. Fourth …. something? No mind.

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Telegraph.

Amazing. No, actually it’s typical. Back to the TeeVee (which is watched and watching…).

There is Something Wrong With the Reality Winner (Real Name) Case

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

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I cannot put my finger on it but I feel it, sense it. Actually, there’s nothing but wrong with this matter – from end to end.

Reality “Being White is Terrorism” Winner (Real Name) is charged in the Southern District of Georgia with leaking a classified NSA report on Russian election manipulation. Something everything smells in this case.

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“What, me leak???”

By the way, this is the face of the NSA (Ft. Gordon and beyond) – and Gen. Y – and crossfit…

Nothing I’ve read makes any sense (especially the “Murican comments here and there). This is either a false flag, a ruse, a diversion, or else the most pitiful spying/whistle-blowing case I’ve ever heard of.

Thanking God I’m not on the Federal Defender appointment short list anymore. Not buying anything, here. And not looking much further into it.

Readers, beware.

A Case for James Bond

12 Friday May 2017

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Hackers are demanding money to unlock computers in multiple countries following a massive ransom-wear attack. England is particularly hard hit.

LONDON — Hackers exploiting data stolen from the United States government conducted extensive cyberattacks on Friday that hit dozens of countries around the world, severely disrupting Britain’s public health system and wreaking havoc on tens of thousands of computers elsewhere.

Hospitals in Britain appeared to be the most severely affected by the attacks, which aimed to blackmail computer users by seizing their data. The attacks blocked doctors’ access to patient files and forced emergency rooms to divert people seeking urgent care.

Corporate computer systems in many other countries — including FedEx of the United States, one of the world’s leading international shippers — were among those affected.

The kicker is that the malicious software used was developed by the NSA in America – to protect us and such. Just as similar hacking tools from the CIA were recently made public, so the NSA has a hard time keeping track of its cyber weapons. Way to go, government.

In this case, people’s lives are at stake. It sounds like no British NHS patients died but they could have. They were certainly inconvenienced. This is more than a breach of privacy. This is an act of terrorism or of war. It should be treated as such. Perhaps one government can clean up the mess caused by another.

Tracking down the hackers will be very difficult. Still, I imagine it could be done. And it should be. Theresa May should turn MI6 loose with orders to hunt down and eradicate the vermin – in Africa, Russia, Mexico – wherever they’re hiding.

And maybe the Military-Security Complex can do a better job of managing its monsters. That, or just not have them.

arogermoore

Eon / United Artists.

Judge Not, Napolitano Out at Fox

21 Tuesday Mar 2017

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Freedom and truth have few champions the caliber of Andrew Napolitano. That Fox has, for the time being, canned the Judge tells you something about that network.

Fox News Channel has pulled legal analyst Andrew Napolitano from the air after disavowing his on-air claim that British intelligence officials had helped former President Barack Obama spy on Donald Trump.

A person with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a personnel matter said Napolitano has been benched and won’t be appearing on the air in the near future. Fox had no immediate comment Monday.

Napolitano’s report last week on “Fox & Friends,” saying he had three intelligence sources who said Obama went “outside the chain of command” to watch Trump, provoked an international incident. Britain dismissed the report as “nonsense” after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer quoted it in a briefing, part of the administration’s continued defense of Trump’s unproven contention that Obama had wiretapped him at Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Napolitano is beyond popular. He will be back – either on Fox or some other, newer, better venue. When he is proven correct – and there’s no doubt about underlying surveillance anyway – Fox may have some egg on their legs.

Andrew Napolitano

AP / Richard Drew.

TrumpNet: Just the Facts

19 Sunday Mar 2017

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And this isn’t even the information Trump has promised for the coming weeks:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Infowars.com have obtained credible information from law enforcement sources regarding individual records of U.S. citizens under National Security Agency (NSA) electronic surveillance in the years 2004 through 2010 – a database that suggests both Donald J. Trump and Alex Jones were under illegal, unauthorized government monitoring during those years.

Michael Zullo, formerly the commander and chief investigator of the Cold Case Posse (CCP), a special investigative group created in 2006 in the office of Joseph M. Arpaio, formerly the sheriff in Maricopa County, an Arizona State Certified Law Enforcement Agency, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, provided sections of the database to Infowars.com.

The electronic surveillance database, provided to Zullo by a whistleblower in 2013, was apparently created by the NSA as part of the NSA’s illegal and unconstitutional Project Dragnet electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens, first revealed by news reports published in 2005, as further documented by the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

Sheriff Arpaio and Chief Investigator Zullo have identified dozens of entries at various addresses, including both Trump Tower in New York City and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, under which Donald Trump was apparently under NSA electronic surveillance from 2004, during President George W. Bush’s term of office, through 2009, the first year of President Obama’s presidency.

The government has the ability to intercept just about all electronic transmissions these days. And, largely, they do just that. What they do with the information depends on several factors, none of them grounded in the law of Anglo-American jurisprudence.

There was little doubt that Trump has spied on. The question was whether he was targeted for something else. If he was, then he is in a unique position now to extract retribution from those who surveilled him. If he wasn’t, then he still has a unique opportunity to address the constant mass spying against nearly all Americans – spying which people either knew about or should have known about 10 or even 20 years ago.

One would think this sort of thing would be taken seriously in the “Land of the Free”. Then again, a bunch of above-average height men in squeaky shoes are playing with balls right now on the TeeVee.

The people must prioritize.

Developing…