Obama Mired In Scandals - Yet Another Affront To Liberty Revealed

Obama administration defends 2nd mass surveillance project

June 07, 2013​

The Obama administration found itself defending -- and beginning to explain -- yet another surveillance effort after leaked documents revealed information about two secret National Security Agency intelligence-gathering programs.​

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On top of a Guardian newspaper report that revealed how authorities were collecting phone records from millions, a Washington Post report detailed another program that scours major Internet companies including Google and Facebook for data. A former senior NSA official confirmed to Fox News that the program was started in 2007 by the FBI and NSA and allows them to tap into top U.S. Internet companies to pull audio, video and other data. ​

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While civil liberties groups cried foul over the program, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued a statement late Thursday decrying the leak of the materials. He called the disclosure of the program that allows the NSA to collect communications data from Internet companies "reprehensible" and said the phone-records monitoring leak could cause harm to the nation's intelligence gathering activities.​

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At the same time, he took the rare step of moving to declassify information about the programs as he sought to defend them against criticism. ​

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“The article omits key information regarding how a classified intelligence collection program is used to prevent terrorist attacks and the numerous safeguards that protect privacy and civil liberties," he said of the Guardian story. ​

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Clapper also said the government was "prohibited from indiscriminately sifting through the telephony metadata acquired under the program.” All information acquired, he said, “is subject to strict, court-imposed restrictions on review and handling. The court only allows the data to be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization. “​

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Several hours earlier, a senior administration official also pushed back, saying the Guardian article and Washington Post article about the Internet mining refers to collection under a law that "does not allow the targeting of any U.S. citizen or of any person located within the United States.”​

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It was not immediately clear how the official defined “targeting.”​

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“The program is subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress,” the official said. “It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons.”​

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A former NSA official told Fox News the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) have been tapping into leading U.S. Internet companies to pull audio, video and photographs.​

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According to the official, the program began in 2007 and is in the second phase. Metadata from the companies is used to identify suspicious individuals and the secondary search goes into content. The official told Fox News that the Utah Data Center is likely a repository for this material.​

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The classified program is code-named PRISM, the Washington Post reported, and has not been disclosed publicly before. Members of Congress who are aware of the program were reportedly bound by oath to keep it confidential.​

According to slides from an internal presentation intended for NSA senior analysts and obtained by the Washington Post, the program accounts for nearly one in seven intelligence reports. ​

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The companies that participate knowingly in the program are Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple, the Washington Post reports.​

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A number of the Internet companies issued statements Thursday night saying they only complied when legally bound to do so. ​

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"Even when the system works just as advertised, with no American singled out for targeting, the NSA routinely collects a great deal of American content," the Washington Post report said. "That is described as "incidental," and it is inherent in contact chaining, one of the basic tools of the trade."​

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To be immune from lawsuits, companies like Yahoo and AOL are reportedly obliged to accept a directive from the attorney general and national intelligence director to open their service to the FBI's Data Intercept Technology Unit, which acts as a liaison between the companies and the NSA. ​

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According to the slides, there has been “continued exponential growth in tasking to Facebook and Skype." ​

"With a few clicks and an affirmation that the subject is believed to be engaged in terrorism, espionage or nuclear proliferation, an analyst obtains full access to Facebook’s 'extensive search and surveillance capabilities against the variety of online social networking services,'" the Washington Post reports. ​

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Skype can reportedly be monitored for audio when one end of a call is a conventional telephone and also can be monitored for video, chat and file transfers when users connect just by a computer. Google services that can be monitored include Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive files, and search terms.​

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A spokesperson for Google says the company "cares deeply" about the security of users' data.​

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"We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully," the spokesperson said. "From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a 'back door' for the government to access private user data."​

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"Protecting the privacy of our users and their data is a top priority for Facebook," the company's chief security officer Joe Sullivan said in a statement. "We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law."​

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A Microsoft spokesperson said that the company only provides customer data after receiving a legally binding order or subpoena. ​

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"In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers," the spokesperson said. "If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it."​

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Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/07/intelligence-officials-reportedly-mining-data-from-us-internet-companies/#ixzz2VY4nWvHg​

 

That is the same story I posted http://www.partisanlines.com/thread...ting-verizon-phone-records.50365/#post-226747

 

Another crazy conspiracy theory. I wondered which one would replace the IRS conspiracy theory, or the Benghazi conspiracy theory, or the death panel conspiracy theory, or the....

 

Thanks, RLM. I think it needs its own thread since it's a separate scandal.

 

No replacements. Just additions.

 

The Guardian: Socialist. The Washington Post: The Lame Stream Media. What would you do without these sources to sniff this stuff out and report on it for you? And here I thought Faux was the only source of breaking news, or at least the only one that told the truth.

 

i assume you're directing your comments to me so I'll answer you. I don't listen or read only FOX News. In fact, it's one of the outlets I read the least. I read a lot of the liberal outlets, too. Sometimes a so-called "news" organization like the Guardian gets lucky. It's like playing blackjack. Chances are you're going to hit if you keep playing long enough.

 

Oh I've directed more than this comment at you.

 

Hmmmmmm, the government is eavesdropping on people...

14 year old's everywhere are saying "Been there, done that." and "Yeah, I know, I was watching them do it, they found some cool stuff," before returning to their porn, manga, and manga-porn.

Chinese officials say "They are so slow! We have been doing that for a long, long time! We invented it! ...I mean: "We are outraged!"", before returning to their porn, their manga, and their manga-porn.

 

From "NSA Bombshell Story Falling Apart Under Scrutiny; Key Facts Turning Out to Be Inaccurate" | The Daily Banter

 

Heheheheh.. Bob Cesca is the author of that tripe. He's a HuffPo blogger who runs a media production company called Snark Rocket. I find it difficult to put credence into someone like that. Sorry.

 

Snowden is either a fool and a dupe, or a liar:

From "Hong Kong Covert Surveillance Law Allows Wiretapping, Bugging Homes, Reading Email" | Little Green Footballs

 

No need to apologise for willful ignorance and prejudice. As far as I can tell, that's par for the course on this site.

 

Aren't we off to a flying start.

 

You will find that the Lefties here hate it when someone quotes bloggers. Just letting you know ahead of time.

 

I like your post, but it is missing one extremely crucial point that people tend to ignore, and that is the fact that we have chosen to form a government to protect us in every way it can.

We can make the choice to force the government to relinquish this power, if that is what we prefer, but we then must accept the consequences of us leaving ourselves vulnerable to certain attacks.

Is that what we want?

It's a choice we have to make, now that it's out in the open.

I'll assume New York City's choice is for more protection, but what about the rest of the country? Do you want to sacrifice the few to protect the privacy of the many? Or do you accept the loss to certain privacy rights in order to protect the few?

My view is that we chose to provide the government with this power, wayyyy back when the country was founded, and it should continue protecting us by monitoring communications everywhere. I believe this is well-within their duty as our governors, our protectors, but it's an immense undertaking, what with the sheer amount of data that must be collected and mined.

We agreed to use elected people as a form of governing, and we're acting like the spoiled children that we are. We forget we chose to do this hundreds of years ago, as a form of government. We imbibed them with a greater sense of purpose in order to protect us from all manners of harm.

Eh, IMO. I wish I could word that a bit better, but gettin' tired lol

 

Guy's they have been gathering intel on what you do in everyday life for years and by them I am not simply talking about the government LOL but the supermarkets n banks Yep if you use a loyalty card, they get a bloody good idea of what you consume, if you use a credit card or debit card not only do they know what you spend but they can track your movements across a country (Pre mobile phone) BIG BRO IS WATCHING and has been doing so for years LOL

 

Just check out the ads here on Partisan Lines.

A program scans our words and chooses ads based on what we say. Cleavage. Breasts. Screaming rhesus monkeys. Samsonite. Watermelon. Sasquatch.

Oh yeah, I'll be getting some real interesting ads soon

 

With a store card they're going to try to entice me to buy some bacon or some butter. With a credit card, they're going to try to entice me to rent a Chrysler 300 instead of a Ford Fiesta. I don't know what sort of insidious plan the government has for my data, but if they're going to lie about Benghazi, I don't want them anywhere near my data. But, what I desire from my government is one thing. Being able to keep my freedom and liberty under the Obama regime is another thing entirely.

 

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Revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly logging the phone and Internet activity of millions of Americans has caused a rift between President Obama and several of his Hollywood supporters.​

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Actor and liberal activist John Cusack tweaked the administration, tweeting “Prism the name for electronic prison – all have to wear lojacks,” in reference to the PRISM data mining program revealed in leaks by former NSA employee Edward Snowden last week.​

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Cusack also re-tweeted “Obama is becoming the next Nixon.”​

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Prominent writer/director Judd Apatow of “Knocked Up” fame also took to Twitter to blast the administration: “What is this, North Korea? We are so inundated with so much info and so many problems – we have given up caring."​

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Apatow also drew attention to reports on the scandal, calling it "an outrageous breach of the privacy and rights of American citizens.”​

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Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore also hopped on the bandwagon, tweeting “the administration has now lost all credibility” while spotlighting a 2007 Obama quote: “that means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more (spying) on citizens... No more tracking citizens..." ​

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Some media critics called the celebrities' about face a welcome change.​

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“I am encouraged to see the Hollywood left is starting to dish out some bipartisan criticism. Now, the NSA scandal under the Obama administration has many feeling betrayed by a Democrat who promised more transparency and less intrusion,” political blogger and author Thomas Moyer told FOX411 Pop Tarts column. “Further, it hits a lot closer to home when you find out that your personal phone records are being monitored, something that scares a lot of people.”​

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But some left-leaners in Hollywood had no problem with the administration's reported actions. Liberal comedian and HBO host Bill Maher praised both the tapping, and Obama’s handling of the growing scandal, during his program Friday night.​

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“I’m okay with it now that Obama is in office. I’m kind of trusting of him,” he said. “We live in a world of nuclear weapons. And there are religious fanatics who would love to get one and set if off here… The fact that a city can be demolished in one second kinda tips the scale for me. I’m not saying to look into your emails is the right thing, I’m just saying, I’m not gonna pretend it’s ‘cause I’m brave, it’s ‘cause I’m scared.”​

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And Chrissy Teigen, best known for posing in swimsuits for Sports Illustrated and being engaged to singer John Legend, also dismissed the issue on Monday.​

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“On NSA: I’m most shocked you’re shocked,” she wrote. “Although I understand why you’re upset, I personally could not care less.”​

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The Guardian broke the story late Wednesday that the federal government was collecting phone call records from Verizon customers.​

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The Guardian and the Washington Post followed with a series of reports about the calls being taken from other telecommunications companies and that the NSA and FBI have a Internet scouring program, code-named PRISM, that records Internet activities, all part of a post-9/11 effort to thwart terrorism.​

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Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/06/11/hollywood-stars-turn-on-obama-over-nsa-phone-tapping-scandal/?intcmp=features#ixzz2W0dM4GQv​