Re: Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls

The Starmaker

unread,

Feb 5, 2014, 11:55:20 AM2/5/14

to

The Starmaker wrote:
>
> thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Thinbluemime,
>
> Your cell is a tracking device.
> It can be used to track you.
>
> And..you're paying for it.

you pay every month.

Larry Anderson

unread,

Feb 6, 2014, 12:02:34 AM2/6/14

to

On Wed, 05 Feb 2014 08:52:25 -0800, The Starmaker wrote:

> thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:

OMG, it's a match made in heaven. Two conspiracy nuts that love to talk
to themselves in their own long, rambling threads, now arguing with each
other. This could either get interesting. Or really REALLY boring.

thinbluemime2

unread,

Feb 6, 2014, 4:29:38 PM2/6/14

to

On Thu, 06 Feb 2014 00:02:34 -0500, Larry Anderson
<lawrence_...@gmail.invalid> wrote:

> On Wed, 05 Feb 2014 08:52:25 -0800, The Starmaker wrote:
>
>> thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
>

> conspiracy nut

> This could either get interesting.

NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents

NSA ‘Probably’ Spies on Members of Congress
http://www.nationaljournal.com/technology/feds-nsa-probably-spies-on-members-of-congress-20140204

Israel spies on Congress. Does that make the United States more or less
secure?

Neocons Who Brought You The Iraq War Endorse AIPAC’s Iran Bill
http://www.lobelog.com/neocons-who-brought-you-the-iraq-war-endorse-aipacs-iran-bill/

--
This communication may be unlawfully collected and stored by the National
Security Agency (NSA) in secret. The parties to this email do not consent
to the retrieving or storing of this communication and any related
metadata, as well as printing, copying, re-transmitting, disseminating, or
otherwise using it. If you believe you have received this communication in
error, please delete it immediately.

The Starmaker

unread,

Feb 7, 2014, 1:02:26 PM2/7/14

to

Matchmaker, Matchmaker,
Make me a match,
Find me a find,
catch me a catch
Matchmaker, Matchmaker
Look through your book,
And make me a perfect match

unread,

Apr 13, 2014, 8:11:17 PM4/13/14

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07

> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
>
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>
> embassy was tapping his telephones"

Obama Lets N.S.A. Exploit Some Internet Flaws, Officials Say
By DAVID E. SANGERAPRIL 12, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/us/politics/obama-lets-nsa-exploit-some-internet-flaws-officials-say.html

WASHINGTON -- Stepping into a heated debate within the nation's intelligence agencies, President Obama has decided that when the National Security Agency discovers major flaws in Internet security, it should -- in most circumstances -- reveal them to assure that they will be fixed, rather than keep mum so that the flaws can be used in espionage or cyberattacks, senior administration officials said Saturday.

But Mr. Obama carved a broad exception for "a clear national security or law enforcement need," the officials said, a loophole that is likely to allow the N.S.A. to continue to exploit security flaws both to crack encryption on the Internet and to design cyberweapons.

The White House has never publicly detailed Mr. Obama's decision, which he made in January as he began a three-month review of recommendations by a presidential advisory committee on what to do in response to recent disclosures about the National Security Agency.

But elements of the decision became evident on Friday, when the White House denied that it had any prior knowledge of the Heartbleed bug, a newly known hole in Internet security that sent Americans scrambling last week to change their online passwords. The White House statement said that when such flaws are discovered, there is now a "bias" in the government to share that knowledge with computer and software manufacturers so a remedy can be created and distributed to industry and consumers.

Caitlin Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the review of the recommendations was now complete, and it had resulted in a "reinvigorated" process to weigh the value of disclosure when a security flaw is discovered, against the value of keeping the discovery secret for later use by the intelligence community.

"This process is biased toward responsibly disclosing such vulnerabilities," she said.

Until now, the White House has declined to say what action Mr. Obama had taken on this recommendation of the president's advisory committee, whose report is better known for its determination that the government get out of the business of collecting bulk telephone data about the calls made by every American. Mr. Obama announced last month that he would end the bulk collection, and leave the data in the hands of telecommunications companies, with a procedure for the government to obtain it with court orders when needed.

But while the surveillance recommendations were noteworthy, inside the intelligence agencies other recommendations, concerning encryption and cyber operations, set off a roaring debate with echoes of the Cold War battles that dominated Washington a half-century ago.

One recommendation urged the N.S.A. to get out of the business of weakening commercial encryption systems or trying to build in "back doors" that would make it far easier for the agency to crack the communications of America's adversaries. Tempting as it was to create easy ways to break codes -- the reason the N.S.A. was established by Harry S. Truman 62 years ago -- the committee concluded that the practice would undercut trust in American software and hardware products. In recent months, Silicon Valley companies have urged the United States to abandon such practices, while Germany and Brazil, among other nations, have said they were considering shunning American-made equipment and software. Their motives were hardly pure: Foreign companies see the N.S.A. disclosures as a way to bar American competitors.

Another recommendation urged the government to make only the most limited, temporary use of what hackers call "zero days," the coding flaws in software like Microsoft Windows that can give an attacker access to a computer -- and to any business, government agency or network connected to it. The flaws get their name from the fact that, when identified, the computer user has "zero days" to fix them before hackers can exploit the accidental vulnerability.

The N.S.A. made use of four "zero day" vulnerabilities in its attack on Iran's nuclear enrichment sites. That operation, code-named "Olympic Games," managed to damage roughly 1,000 Iranian centrifuges, and by some accounts helped drive the country to the negotiating table.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/ID-1YzcFDBw/JucaV5prx4sJ

Not surprisingly, officials at the N.S.A. and at its military partner, the United States Cyber Command, warned that giving up the capability to exploit undisclosed vulnerabilities would amount to "unilateral disarmament" -- a phrase taken from the battles over whether and how far to cut America's nuclear arsenal.

"We don't eliminate nuclear weapons until the Russians do," one senior intelligence official said recently. "You are not going to see the Chinese give up on 'zero days' just because we do." Even a senior White House official who was sympathetic to broad reforms after the N.S.A. disclosures said last month, "I can't imagine the president -- any president -- entirely giving up a technology that might enable him some day to take a covert action that could avoid a shooting war."

At the center of that technology are the kinds of hidden gaps in the Internet -- almost always created by mistake or oversight -- that Heartbleed created. There is no evidence that the N.S.A. had any role in creating Heartbleed, or even that it made use of it. When the White House denied prior knowledge of Heartbleed on Friday afternoon, it appeared to be the first time that the N.S.A. had ever said whether a particular flaw in the Internet was -- or was not -- in the secret library it keeps at Fort Meade, Md., the headquarters of the agency and Cyber Command.

But documents released by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, make it clear that two years before Heartbleed became known, the N.S.A. was looking at ways to accomplish exactly what the flaw did by accident. A program code-named Bullrun, apparently named for the site of two Civil War battles just outside Washington, was part of a decade-long effort to crack or circumvent encryption on the web. The documents do not make clear how well it succeeded, but it may well have been more effective than exploiting Heartbleed would be at enabling access to secret data.

The government has become one of the biggest developers and purchasers of information identifying "zero days," officials acknowledge. Those flaws are big business -- Microsoft pays up to $150,000 to those who find them and bring them to the company to fix -- and other countries are gathering them so avidly that something of a modern-day arms race has broken out. Chief among the nations seeking them are China and Russia, though Iran and North Korea are in the market as well.

"Cyber as an offensive weapon will become bigger and bigger," said Michael DeCesare, who runs the McAfee computer security operations of Intel Corporation. "I don't think any amount of policy alone will stop them" from doing what they are doing, he said of the Russians, the Chinese and others. "That's why effective command and control strategies are absolutely imperative on our side."

The presidential advisory committee did not urge the N.S.A. to get out of the business entirely. But it said that the president should make sure the N.S.A. does not "engineer vulnerabilities" into commercial encryption systems. And it said that if the United States finds a "zero day," it should patch it, not exploit it, with one exception: Senior officials could "briefly authorize using a zero day for high priority intelligence protection."

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 30, 2014, 12:32:49 PM5/30/14

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
>
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
>

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
>
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>
>
>

> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

Report: Israel spied on Bill Clinton
Newsweek's latest report on alleged Israeli espionage cites new book claiming Israel tapped the ex-president, and other leaders', phone calls.
Haaretz | May 30, 2014
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.596288

In Newsweek's most recent report on Israeli espionage on the United States, the magazine claims that Israel listened in on phone calls between former U.S. President Bill Clinton and other leaders during critical stages of the Middle East peace talks in 1999.

According to the report, which cites British-Israeli political scientist Aharon Bregman's upcoming book "Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories," Israeli intelligence eavesdropped on conversations between Clinton and the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.

Citing transcriptions of the phone calls, the book also alleges Israel tapped calls between Assad and Syria's foreign minister in the U.S., as well as discussions between Clinton and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Bregman writes that Israel eavesdropped on a conversation between former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Barak's successor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In that conversation, Albright assured Netanyahu that "the U.S. will conduct a thorough consultation process with Israel" regarding any potential agreement with Syria.

According to Bregman, Israel's knowledge of the American and Syrian stance in the ongoing negotiations "gave Israel a huge advantage, allowing them to be ahead of the game in peace negotiations and know what to expect in the actual talks and maneuver accordingly."

The Newsweek reports have claimed that Israel's alleged espionage against the U.S. has continued for decades, despite Israeli and U.S. denial.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 30, 2014, 1:00:48 PM5/30/14

to

On Tuesday, August 6, 2013 2:06:02 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime2 wrote:
> On Thursday, August 1, 2013 6:44:27 PM UTC+1, Barb May wrote:
>
> > thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > > Secret Sex Tape: Monica Lewinsky Caught On Explicit Recording With
>
> > > Bill Clinton
>
> > > Jul 31, 2013 @ 3:19AM | By radarstaff
>
> >
>
> > > The Enquirer reports the emergence of the tape could torpedo
>
> > > Hillary�s expected run for the White House.
>
> >
>
> > A ridiculous assertion. Bill Clinton isn't even on the tape. It's just
>
> > Monica begging him for some "face" time.
>
> >
>
> > Nothing new here. And nothing to do with Hillary.
>
> > --
>
> > Barb
>
>
>
> Only one lone tape retained for 15 years...?
>
>
>
> Remember the one lone stained blue dress was held for two years in secret before being used as a political weapon.
>
>
>
> Could there be more tapes, with Slick Willy's voice?
>
>
>
> Besides holding those tapes back for a more opportune time, what other reasons could there be for holding back recordings? Could it be to protect sources and methods? What if a foreign embassy WAS actually recording Bill Clinton's phone conversations? Does that sworn testimony seem so absurd since Snowden has revealed he could spy on the President of the United States of America?
>
>
>
> "Nobody is listening to your phone calls" has already been shown to be a lie by Barack Obama.

Israel Eavesdropped on President Clinton's Diplomatic Phone Calls
http://www.newsweek.com/israel-eavesdropped-president-clintons-diplomatic-phone-calls-252771

Israeli intelligence eavesdropped on phone calls between President Bill Clinton and Syria's late strongman Hafez al-Assad during sensitive Middle East peace negotiations 15 years ago, a forthcoming book says, citing verbatim transcripts of the calls

---------

Told ya, and the best is yet to come. Don't let the '1999' timeline deceive you. The Israelis wiretapped every conversation between Lewinsky and Clinton, and those tapes are safely tucked away until they are needed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Israel.svg

Bill Steele

unread,

May 30, 2014, 3:46:59 PM5/30/14

to

The Israelis wiretapped every conversation between Lewinsky and Clinton.

There's a TV series in this: A guy who works for the NSA listens to
phone calls and then goes out and tries to fix people's problems. Like a
soap opera Person of Interest.

thinbluemime2

unread,

May 30, 2014, 4:20:31 PM5/30/14

to

There might be a television series in this. There definitely is a story.
Remember when Hillary phrased "a vast right wing conspiracy"? What is
forgotten is immediately after that statement she challenged everyone to
uncover the conspiracy and report on it.

It was like the Starr hearings where under oath Lewinsky tells the whole
world the President's phone is tapped, but no investigative journalist
followed up with a report. With new revelations that pro-Israel
right-wingers tapped the phone it no longer sounds quite so conspiratorial.

It all would make a good series if it were properly written. We probably
will have to wait for the HBO network to tell the story though, since the
main stream news networks show almost no interest.

Sometimes fictional allegory is more revealing than fair and balanced news
stories. I guess it's not for us to decide.

----------

Show Title:
"President of Interest"

Tagline:
"You are being watched, in Tel-Aviv"

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Jun 3, 2014, 5:47:14 PM6/3/14

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
>
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w

> 1997-03-29
>
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>
>
>

> http://www.cnn.com/starr.report/6fnarrit.htm

They knew our secrets. One year later, we know theirs.
https://www.aclu.org/they-knew-our-secrets-one-year-later-we-know-theirs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZlUxHdnqhg

One year ago, the world had never heard of Edward Snowden, and we knew very little about the breathtaking scope of U.S. government surveillance. One year later, we are in a very different place. Since the first Snowden disclosure was published on June 5, 2013, we have learned that our government is collecting colossal amounts of information about our communications, whereabouts, and relationships.

What we didn't know at this time last year is now at the heart of an unprecedented global debate -- a debate joined in full force by the American people, all three branches of the U.S. government, the technology industry, and the international community.

We know more than ever before about our government's mass surveillance apparatus. We now have the power to rein it in.

---------------

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/Z26yMipY_2Q/ulfUZ_KHNnIJ

Sen. Wyden: When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they're going to be stunned and they are going to be angry.

Director Clapper, does the NSA collect data at all on hundreds of millions of Americans?

Gen. Clapper: No, sir.

Sen. Wyden: It does not?

Gen. Clapper: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Jun 5, 2014, 12:00:57 PM6/5/14

to

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
>
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>

September 11, 1998 H. Doc. 105-310 KENNETH W. STARR
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?st=2h.+doc.+105-3102&granuleId=CDOC-105hdoc310&packageId=CDOC-105hdoc310
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CDOC-105hdoc310/pdf/CDOC-105hdoc310.pdf

> 1997-03-29
>
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>

Israel and the Territories
An interview with Ahron Bregman 03-Jun-2014
http://www.fathomjournal.org/conversation/israel-and-the-territories/

Part 2: Sources

F: In a 'Note on Sources' you write that you used top-secret memos in the book, as well as letters and reports 'which have never been seen before' including transcripts of telephone conversations between the President of the United States and world leaders 'secretly recorded by Israeli agents.' This will raise some eyebrows, to say the least, and may be met with some scepticism. What are you able to tell Fathom readers about these sources and how you obtained them?

AB: Benjamin Netanyahu said recently in an interview with Bloomberg, and let me quote him here, that, 'Israel has not conducted any espionage operations in the United States, period. Full stop. Not direct espionage, not indirect espionage, nothing, zero. We do not conduct in any way, shape or form espionage operations in the United States.' Well, in my book I show that Israel did in fact spy on the Americans. Israeli agents secretly recorded the telephone conversations of Bill Clinton whilst he was President of the US, and I quote directly from these secretly recorded conversations. If you read carefully Netanyahu's words you'll see that he's repeating, twice, the fact that Israel did not conduct espionage 'in' the US. So maybe the spying was done somewhere along the telephone line, not physically in the US, but elsewhere. Still, this is called espionage and it goes against the spirit of Netanyahu's message about not spying on friends.

I know the documents I've quoted will lead to a major investigation in Israel, as there are even more sensitive documents in the book, such as one written by Israeli internal security saying that a dead Arafat would benefit Israel.

What's my source? Well, I can't really tell you; this secret will go with me to the grave. In my book I call it 'private sources'. But let me tell you just that: when I research a book, I hunt for private archives. You see, in Israel, everyone - but everyone - from the minister and down the ladder to the most junior aide and adviser, perhaps even the cleaners, keep their own private archives. Some of these collections are quite big, others are small, perhaps just a few folders. But even the small ones often contain top secret documents. It's a catastrophe.

The first and, in fact, the most interesting private archive I have ever reviewed was of a former head of the Mossad, the Israeli secret intelligence. I'll not tell you his name, but he invited me to his office and I spent nearly a week there, going through his folders, hardly eating or drinking because it was so fascinating and I just didn't want to waste any time on breaks. I'll not be surprised if after the publication of Cursed Victory, the Israelis will try to put an end to this practice, whereby everyone's got his little private archive.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Jun 12, 2014, 2:08:46 PM6/12/14

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
>
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> 1997-03-29
>
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>
> embassy was tapping his telephones"

For First Time, Appeals Court Rules Warrant Is Required For Cell Phone Location Tracking
June 11, 2014
https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/first-time-appeals-court-rules-warrant-required-cell-phone-location-tracking

MIAMI - For the first time, a federal appeals court has ruled that law enforcement must obtain a warrant to get people's phone location histories from their cell service companies.

"The court's opinion is a resounding defense of the Fourth Amendment's continuing vitality in the digital age," said American Civil Liberties Union Staff Attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, who argued the case before the 11th Circuit Appeals Court as a friend-of-the-court in April. "This opinion puts police on notice that when they want to enlist people's cell phones as tracking devices, they must get a warrant from a judge based on probable cause. The court soundly repudiates the government's argument that by merely using a cell phone, people somehow surrender their privacy rights."

"There is a reasonable privacy interest in being near the home of a lover, or a dispensary of medication, or a place of worship, or a house of ill repute," the three-judge panel wrote in a unanimous opinion. "In short, we hold that cell site location information is within the subscriber's reasonable expectation of privacy. The obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation."

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Aug 3, 2014, 10:19:14 AM8/3/14

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
>
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
>
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>
>
>

> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

Report: Israel tapped John Kerry's phone when he was brokering peace talks
By JPOST.COM STAFF 08/03/2014 11:38
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Israel-tapped-John-Kerrys-phone-when-he-was-brokering-peace-talks-369864

Several sources in the intelligence community confirm to 'Der Spiegel' that Israel listened to US Secretary of State's unencrypted calls.

Israeli intelligence intercepted phone calls of US Secretary of State John Kerry while he was trying to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority earlier this year, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Sunday.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israel-intelligence-eavesdropped-on-phone-calls-by-john-kerry-a-984246.html

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Oct 31, 2014, 4:56:49 PM10/31/14

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"

The FBI's Secret House Meeting to Get Access to Your iPhone
Brendan Sasso October 30, 2014
http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/the-fbi-s-secret-house-meeting-to-get-access-to-your-iphone-20141030

The Obama administration is ramping up its campaign to force technology companies to help the government spy on their users.

FBI and Justice Department officials met with House staffers this week for a classified briefing on how encryption is hurting police investigations, according to staffers familiar with the meeting.

The briefing included Democratic and Republican aides for the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, the staffers said. The meeting was held in a classified room, and aides are forbidden from revealing what was discussed.

It's unclear whether the FBI is planning a similar briefing for Senate aides.

Earlier this month, FBI Director James Comey gave a speech arguing that the "post-Snowden pendulum has swung too far," and that police are often now unable to obtain the information they need for an investigation--even after getting a warrant. As a result, child predators, terrorists, and other criminals could go free, he warned.

The speech was prompted by new policies from Apple and Google to provide default encryption on their phones, making it impossible for the companies to give police access to photos, contact lists, and other data stored on devices.

"The FBI has a sworn duty to keep every American safe from crime and terrorism, and technology has become the tool of choice for some very dangerous people," Comey said in the speech at the Brookings Institution.

The FBI chief urged Congress to enact legislation to require tech companies to create a way for police to spy on their users.

A 1994 law, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, forces telephone companies to build surveillance technologies into their networks to allow law enforcement to install wiretaps. But the law hasn't been updated and doesn't cover new networks and devices.

Comey called for Congress to revise the law to create a "level playing field" so that Google, Apple, and Facebook have the same obligation as AT&T and Verizon to help police.

But the plan faces fierce opposition from tech companies and privacy advocates. They warn that any backdoor for law enforcement could also be exploited by hackers. Forcing U.S. companies to build insecure products will make them less attractive in foreign markets, they claim.

The critics also argue that police often have other ways of legally obtaining information, such as getting warrants for data stored on company servers.

Convincing Congress to enact Comey's proposal will be a tough challenge. In the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks, most lawmakers seem more interested in reining in government surveillance than expanding it.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Nov 13, 2014, 10:17:42 PM11/13/14

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>

> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

Americans' Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program
Devices on Planes that Mimic Cellphone Towers Used to Target Criminals, but Also Sift Through Thousands of Other Phones
Devlin Barrett Nov. 13, 2014
http://online.wsj.com/articles/americans-cellphones-targeted-in-secret-u-s-spy-program-1415917533

WASHINGTON--The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.

The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program.

Planes are equipped with devices--some known as "dirtboxes" to law-enforcement officials because of the initials of the Boeing Co. unit that produces them--which mimic cell towers of large telecommunications firms and trick cellphones into reporting their unique registration information.

The technology in the two-foot-square device enables investigators to scoop data from tens of thousands of cellphones in a single flight, collecting their identifying information and general location, these people said.

People with knowledge of the program wouldn't discuss the frequency or duration of such flights, but said they take place on a regular basis.

A Justice Department official would neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a program. The official said discussion of such matters would allow criminal suspects or foreign powers to determine U.S. surveillance capabilities. Justice Department agencies comply with federal law, including by seeking court approval, the official said.

The program is the latest example of the extent to which the U.S. is training its surveillance lens inside the U.S. It is similar in approach to the National Security Agency's program to collect millions of Americans phone records, in that it scoops up large volumes of data in order to find a single person or a handful of people. The U.S. government justified the phone-records collection by arguing it is a minimally invasive way of searching for terrorists.

Christopher Soghoian, chief technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, called it "a dragnet surveillance program. It's inexcusable and it's likely--to the extent judges are authorizing it--[that] they have no idea of the scale of it."

Cellphones are programmed to connect automatically to the strongest cell tower signal. The device being used by the U.S. Marshals Service identifies itself as having the closest, strongest signal, even though it doesn't, and forces all the phones that can detect its signal to send in their unique registration information.

Even having encryption on a phone, such as the kind included on Apple Inc. 's iPhone 6, doesn't prevent this process.

The technology is aimed at locating cellphones linked to individuals under investigation by the government, including fugitives and drug dealers, but it collects information on cellphones belonging to people who aren't criminal suspects, these people said. They said the device determines which phones belong to suspects and "lets go" of the non-suspect phones.

The device can briefly interrupt calls on certain phones. Authorities have tried to minimize the potential for harm, including modifying the software to ensure the fake tower doesn't interrupt anyone calling 911 for emergency help, one person familiar with the matter said.

The program cuts out phone companies as an intermediary in searching for suspects. Rather than asking a company for cell-tower information to help locate a suspect, which law enforcement has criticized as slow and inaccurate, the government can now get that information itself. People familiar with the program say they do get court orders to search for phones, but it isn't clear if those orders describe the methods used because the orders are sealed.

Also unknown are the steps taken to ensure data collected on innocent people isn't kept for future examination by investigators. A federal appeals court ruled earlier this year that over-collection of data by investigators, and stockpiling of such data, was a violation of the Constitution.

The program is more sophisticated than anything previously understood about government use of such technology. Until now, the hunting of digital trails created by cellphones had been thought limited to devices carried in cars that scan the immediate area for signals. Civil-liberties groups are suing for information about use of such lower-grade devices, some of them called Stingrays, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

By taking the program airborne, the government can sift through a greater volume of information and with greater precision, these people said. If a suspect's cellphone is identified, the technology can pinpoint its location within about 10 feet, down to a specific room in a building. Newer versions of the technology can be programmed to do more than suck in data: They can also jam signals and retrieve data from a target phone such as texts or photos. It isn't clear if this domestic program has ever used those features.

Similar devices are used by U.S. military and intelligence officials operating in other countries, including in war zones, where they are sometimes used to locate terrorist suspects, according to people familiar with the work. In the U.S., these people said, the technology has been effective in catching suspected drug dealers and killers. They wouldn't say which suspects were caught through this method.

The scanning is done by the Technical Operations Group of the U.S. Marshals Service, which tracks fugitives, among other things. Sometimes it deploys the technology on targets requested by other parts of the Justice Department.

Within the Marshals Service, some have questioned the legality of such operations and the internal safeguards, these people said. They say scooping up of large volumes of information, even for a short period, may not be properly understood by judges who approve requests for the government to locate a suspect's phone.

Some within the agency also question whether people scanning cellphone signals are doing enough to minimize intrusions into the phones of other citizens, and if there are effective procedures in place to safeguard the handling of that data.

It is unclear how closely the Justice Department oversees the program. "What is done on U.S. soil is completely legal," said one person familiar with the program. "Whether it should be done is a separate question."

Referring to the more limited range of Stingray devices, Mr. Soghoian of the ACLU said: "Maybe it's worth violating privacy of hundreds of people to catch a suspect, but is it worth thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of peoples' privacy?"

The existence of the cellphone program could escalate tensions between Washington and technology companies, including the telecom firms whose devices are being redirected by the program.

If a suspect is believed to have a cellphone from Verizon Communications Inc., for example, the device would emit a signal fooling Verizon phones and those roaming on Verizon's network into thinking the plane is the nearest available Verizon cell tower. Phones that are turned on, even if not in use, would "ping'' the flying device and send their registration information. In a densely populated area, the dirtbox could pick up data of tens of thousands of cellphones.

The approach is similar to what computer hackers refer to as a "man in the middle'' attack, in which a person's electronic device is tricked into thinking it is relaying data to a legitimate or intended part of the communications system.

A Verizon spokesman said the company was unaware of the program. "The security of Verizon's network and our customers' privacy are top priorities,'' the spokesman said. "However, to be clear, the equipment referenced in the article is not Verizon's and is not part of our network."

An AT&T Inc. spokeswoman declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Sprint Corp.

For cost reasons, the flights usually target a number of suspects at a time, rather than just a single fugitive. But they can be used for a single suspect if the need is great enough to merit the resources, these people said.

The dirtbox and Stingray are both types of what tech experts call "IMSI catchers,'' named for the identification system used by networks to identify individual cellphones.

The name "dirtbox'' came from the acronym of the company making the device, DRT, for Digital Receiver Technology Inc., people said. DRT is now a subsidiary of Boeing. A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment.

"DRT has developed a device that emulates a cellular base station to attract cellphones for a registration process even when they are not in use,'' according to a 2010 regulatory filing Boeing made with the U.S. Commerce Department, which touted the device's success in finding contraband cellphones smuggled in to prison inmates.

Corrections & Amplifications

An earlier version of this article incorrectly named Digital Receiver Technology Inc. as Digital Recovery Technology Inc. It also incorrectly listed what is known as IMSI catcher technology as ISMI catcher.

Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin....@wsj.com

thinbluemime2

unread,

Nov 18, 2014, 6:41:35 AM11/18/14

to

> The program is the latest example of the extent to which the U.S. is
> training its surveillance lens inside the U.S. It is similar in approach
> to the National Security Agency's program to collect millions of
> Americans phone records, in that it scoops up large volumes of data in
> order to find a single person or a handful of people. The U.S.
> government justified the phone-records collection by arguing it is a
> minimally invasive way of searching for terrorists.

Judge threatens detective with contempt for declining to reveal cellphone
tracking methods
By Justin Fenton, November 17, 2014
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-stingray-officer-contempt-20141117-story.html

Baltimore prosecutors withdrew key evidence in a robbery case Monday
rather than reveal details of the cellphone tracking technology police
used to gather it.

The surprise turn in Baltimore Circuit Court came after a defense attorney
pressed a city police detective to reveal how officers had tracked his
client.

City police Det. John L. Haley, a member of a specialized phone tracking
unit, said officers did not use the controversial device known as a
stingray. But when pressed on how phones are tracked, he cited what he
called a "nondisclosure agreement" with the FBI.

"You don't have a nondisclosure agreement with the court," Baltimore
Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams replied. Williams threatened to hold Haley
in contempt if he did not respond. Prosecutors decided to withdraw the
evidence instead.

unread,

May 7, 2015, 12:01:13 PM5/7/15

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

> 2013-06-07

> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>
> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

Wyden, Heinrich: Second Circuit Court of Appeals Rules NSA Dragnet Is Illegal - One More Reason to End the Dragnet
Thursday, May 7, 2015
http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-heinrich-second-circuit-court-of-appeals-rules-nsa-dragnet-is-illegal_one-more-reason-to-end-the-dragnet-

Washington, D.C. - Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., today called on the White House to finally end the mass surveillance of Americans, following a decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that the National Security Agency is violating the law by collecting millions of Americans' phone records.

"This is a huge step for individual Americans' rights," Wyden said. "This dragnet surveillance program violates the law and tramples on Americans' privacy rights without making our country any safer. It is long past time for it to end. Now that this program is finally being examined in the sunlight, the Executive Branch's claims about its legality and effectiveness are crumbling. The President should end mass surveillance immediately. If not, Congress needs to finish the job and finally end this dragnet."

"This ruling affirms that the government does not have the authority to collect and retain the private telephone activity of innocent, law-abiding Americans," Heinrich said. "It should also give the president the confidence to finally end this overly broad program using his existing authority. The NSA's bulk phone records program is a major invasion of Americans privacy and has done little if anything to further the fight against terrorism. We can and must balance the government's need to keep our nation safe with protecting our constitutional rights."

--------------

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/clapper-ca2-wyden-amicus.pdf
https://www.aclu.org/news/appeals-court-strikes-down-nsa-phone-spying-program-unconstitutional-aclu-lawsuit
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/appellate-court-rules-nsas-bulk-collection-phone-records-illegal/

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 7, 2015, 12:08:05 PM5/7/15

to

The NSA program ruled illegal by the court is the one whose existence James Clapper falsely denied to the Senate. He still has his job.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/596341491951341568

You Are Being Watched
https://vimeo.com/122217829

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 7, 2015, 12:16:35 PM5/7/15

to

...whether it's a machine or a person doing the searching doesn't matter, Lynch wrote:

"[T]he government admits that, when it queries its database, its computers search all of the material stored in the database in order to identify records that match the search term. In doing so, it necessarily searches appellants' records electronically, even if such a search does not return appellants' records for close review by a human agent.

There is no question that an equivalent manual review of the records, in search of connections to a suspect person or telephone, would confer standing even on the government's analysis.

That the search is conducted by a machine might lessen the intrusion, but does not deprive appellants of standing to object to the collection and review of their data."

NSA'S BULK COLLECTION OF PHONE RECORDS IS ILLEGAL, APPEALS COURT SAYS
BY DAN FROOMKIN
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/appellate-court-rules-nsas-bulk-collection-phone-records-illegal/

-----------------

THANK-YOU Edward Snowden !

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 7, 2015, 12:49:48 PM5/7/15

to

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 12:01:13 PM UTC-4, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ
>
> > 2013-06-07
> > Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 1997-03-29
> > "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> > conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> > embassy was tapping his telephones"
> >
> > http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf
>

> Wyden, Heinrich: Second Circuit Court of Appeals Rules NSA Dragnet Is Illegal - One More Reason to End the Dragnet
> Thursday, May 7, 2015
> http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-heinrich-second-circuit-court-of-appeals-rules-nsa-dragnet-is-illegal_one-more-reason-to-end-the-dragnet-
>

Alexander Abdo, who argued the case for the American Civil Liberties Union, praised the ruling.

"This decision is a victory for the rule of law that should spur Congress into action," he said. "Modern technology has created tremendous opportunity, but it has also enabled surveillance on a scale inconsistent with free society. Today's decision is an opportunity to redouble the defense of the constitutional principles that have made our nation what it is today."

The appeals court sent the matter back to a Federal District Court judge to decide what to do next. The government could also appeal the ruling to the full appeals court, or to the Supreme Court. Parallel cases are pending before two other appeals courts that have not yet ruled.

The bulk phone records program traces back to October 2001. After the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush secretly authorized the N.S.A. to begin a group of surveillance and data-collection programs, without obeying statutory limits, for the purpose of detecting and disrupting terrorist attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/us/nsa-phone-records-collection-ruled-illegal-by-appeals-court.html

Say. Has FBI solved the anthrax terrorist attack yet?
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/596347767380934656

Anthrax - A Skeleton in the Closet
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/k041AeLqaHc/r2QPu5vERbAJ

Bill Steele

unread,

May 7, 2015, 2:44:17 PM5/7/15

to

On 5/7/15 12:16 PM, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> That the search is conducted by a machine might lessen the intrusion, but does not deprive appellants of standing to object to the collection and review of their data."

Could this spill over into making TV ratings illegal?

Meanwhile, the phone company knows where I went today, and Amazon knows
what I bought...

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 7, 2015, 3:03:27 PM5/7/15

to

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 2:44:17 PM UTC-4, Bill Steele wrote:
> On 5/7/15 12:16 PM, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/YNvQYWjCkngJ

> > That the search is conducted by a machine might lessen the intrusion, but does not deprive appellants of standing to object to the collection and review of their data."

> Could this spill over into making TV ratings illegal?

You are being watched...

> Meanwhile, the phone company knows where I went today, and Amazon knows
> what I bought...

Yes but...

Neither the phone company or Amazon has the legal authority to prosecute you in a secret court.

Think about that for a moment.

INCOMING!!!!
https://www.aclu.org/blog/death-without-due-process-0

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 7, 2015, 3:43:06 PM5/7/15

to

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 12:01:13 PM UTC-4, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ
>
> > 2013-06-07
> > Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 1997-03-29
> > "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> > conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> > embassy was tapping his telephones"
> >
> > http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf
>
>
>
>
> Wyden, Heinrich: Second Circuit Court of Appeals Rules NSA Dragnet Is Illegal - One More Reason to End the Dragnet
> Thursday, May 7, 2015
> http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-heinrich-second-circuit-court-of-appeals-rules-nsa-dragnet-is-illegal_one-more-reason-to-end-the-dragnet-
>
>
> Washington, D.C. - Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., today called on the White House to finally end the mass surveillance of Americans, following a decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that the National Security Agency is violating the law by collecting millions of Americans' phone records.

McCain weighs in on NSA ruling: 'People seem to have forgotten 9/11'
Ben Kamisar - 05/07/15
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/241329-mccain-weighs-in-on-nsa-ruling-people-have-forgotten-about-9-11

"We have to have the ability to monitor these communications," he said.
"It's pretty clear that 9/11 could have been prevented if we had known about some of the communications that were linked to those who committed the terrible atrocity of 9/11."

9/11: A Conspiracy Theory
Corbett * 09/11/2011
https://www.corbettreport.com/911-a-conspiracy-theory/

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor.

These 19 hijackers, devout religious fundamentalists who liked to drink alcohol, snort cocaine, and live with pink-haired strippers, managed to knock down 3 buildings with 2 planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn't handle a single engine Cessna was able to fly a 757 in an 8,000 foot descending 270 degree corskscrew turn to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office where DoD staffers were working on the mystery of the 2.3 trillion dollars that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced "missing" from the Pentagon's coffers in a press conference the day before, on September 10, 2001.

Luckily, the news anchors knew who did it within minutes, the pundits knew within hours, the Administration knew within the day, and the evidence literally fell into the FBI's lap. But for some reason a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists demanded an investigation into the greatest attack on American soil in history.

The investigation was delayed, underfunded, set up to fail, a conflict of interest and a cover up from start to finish. It was based on testimony extracted through torture, the records of which were destroyed. It failed to mention the existence of WTC7, Able Danger, Ptech, Sibel Edmonds, OBL and the CIA, and the drills of hijacked aircraft being flown into buildings that were being simulated at the precise same time that those events were actually happening. It was lied to by the Pentagon, the CIA, the Bush Administration and as for Bush and Cheney...well, no one knows what they told it because they testified in secret, off the record, not under oath and behind closed doors. It didn't bother to look at who funded the attacks because that question is of "little practical significance". Still, the 9/11 Commission did brilliantly, answering all of the questions the public had (except most of the victims' family members' questions) and pinned blame on all the people responsible (although no one so much as lost their job), determining the attacks were "a failure of imagination" because "I don't think anyone could envision flying airplanes into buildings " except the Pentagon and FEMA and NORAD and the NRO.

The DIA destroyed 2.5 TB of data on Able Danger, but that's OK because it probably wasn't important.

The SEC destroyed their records on the investigation into the insider trading before the attacks, but that's OK because destroying the records of the largest investigation in SEC history is just part of routine record keeping.

NIST has classified the data that they used for their model of WTC7's collapse, but that's OK because knowing how they made their model of that collapse would "jeopardize public safety".

The FBI has argued that all material related to their investigation of 9/11 should be kept secret from the public, but that's OK because the FBI probably has nothing to hide.

This man never existed, nor is anything he had to say worthy of your attention, and if you say otherwise you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist and deserve to be shunned by all of humanity. Likewise him, him, him, and her. (and her and her and him).

Osama Bin Laden lived in a cave fortress in the hills of Afghanistan, but somehow got away. Then he was hiding out in Tora Bora but somehow got away. Then he lived in Abottabad for years, taunting the most comprehensive intelligence dragnet employing the most sophisticated technology in the history of the world for 10 years, releasing video after video with complete impunity (and getting younger and younger as he did so), before finally being found in a daring SEAL team raid which wasn't recorded on video, in which he didn't resist or use his wife as a human shield, and in which these crack special forces operatives panicked and killed this unarmed man, supposedly the best source of intelligence about those dastardly terrorists on the planet. Then they dumped his body in the ocean before telling anyone about it. Then a couple dozen of that team's members died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

This is the story of 9/11, brought to you by the media which told you the hard truths about JFK and incubator babies and mobile production facilities and the rescue of Jessica Lynch.

If you have any questions about this story...you are a batshit, paranoid, tinfoil, dog-abusing baby-hater and will be reviled by everyone. If you love your country and/or freedom, happiness, rainbows, rock and roll, puppy dogs, apple pie and your grandma, you will never ever express doubts about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.

This has been a public service announcement by: the Friends of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, SEC, MSM, White House, NIST, and the 9/11 Commission. Because Ignorance is Strength.

Bill Steele

unread,

May 8, 2015, 4:09:33 PM5/8/15

to

On 5/7/15 3:43 PM, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> If you have any questions about this story...you are a batshit, paranoid, tinfoil, dog-abusing baby-hater and will be reviled by everyone. If you love your country and/or freedom, happiness, rainbows, rock and roll, puppy dogs, apple pie and your grandma, you will never ever express doubts about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.

I think I just read that in a chain letter.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 24, 2015, 12:59:45 PM5/24/15

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>
> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

NSA bulk phone records collection to end despite USA Freedom Act failure
Spencer Ackerman Saturday 23 May 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/23/nsa-bulk-phone-records-collection-usa-freedom-act-senate

Even as the Senate remains at an impasse over the future of US domestic surveillance powers, the National Security Agency will be legally unable to collect US phone records in bulk by the time Congress returns from its Memorial Day vacation.

The administration, as suggested in a memo it sent Congress on Wednesday, declined to ask a secret surveillance court for another 90-day extension of the order necessary to collect US phone metadata in bulk. The filing deadline was Friday, hours before the Senate failed to come to terms on a bill that would have formally repealed the NSA domestic surveillance program.

"We did not file an application for reauthorization," an administration official confirmed to the Guardian on Saturday.

The administration decision ensures that beginning at 5pm ET on 1 June, for the first time since October 2001 the NSA will no longer collect en masse Americans' phone records.

It represents a quiet, unceremonious end to the most domestically acrimonious NSA program revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, in a June 2013 exposé in the Guardian

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Jul 6, 2015, 6:51:55 PM7/6/15

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>
> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

Eric Holder: The Justice Department could strike deal with Edward Snowden
Michael Isikoff Chief Investigative Correspondent July 6, 2015
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/eric-holder-the-justice-department-could-strike-123393663066.html

"we are in a different place as a result of the Snowden disclosures" and that "his actions spurred a necessary debate" that prompted President Obama and Congress to change policies on the bulk collection of phone records of American citizens.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder said today that a "possibility exists" for the Justice Department to cut a deal with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that would allow him to return to the United States from Moscow.

In an interview with Yahoo News, Holder said "we are in a different place as a result of the Snowden disclosures" and that "his actions spurred a necessary debate" that prompted President Obama and Congress to change policies on the bulk collection of phone records of American citizens.

Asked if that meant the Justice Department might now be open to a plea bargain that allows Snowden to return from his self-imposed exile in Moscow, Holder replied: "I certainly think there could be a basis for a resolution that everybody could ultimately be satisfied with. I think the possibility exists."

Holder's comments came as he began a new job as a private lawyer at Covington & Burling, the elite Washington law firm where he worked before serving as the nation's top law enforcement officer from February 2009 until last April.

In that capacity, Holder presided over an unprecedented crackdown on government leakers, including the filing of a June 2013 criminal complaint against Snowden, charging him with three felony violations of the Espionage Act for turning over tens of thousands of government documents to journalists.

Holder had previously said -- in a January 2014 interview with MSNBC -- that the U.S. would be willing to "engage in conversation" with Snowden and his lawyers were he willing to return to the United States to face the charges, but ruled out any granting of clemency.

But his remarks to Yahoo News go further than any current or former Obama administration official in suggesting that Snowden's disclosures had a positive impact and that the administration might be open to a negotiated plea that the self-described whistleblower could accept, according to his lawyer Ben Wizner.

"The former attorney general's recognition that Snowden's actions led to meaningful changes is welcome," said Wizner. "This is significant ... I don't think we've seen this kind of respect from anybody at a Cabinet level before."

Holder declined to discuss what the outlines of a possible deal might consist of, saying that as the former attorney general, it would not be "appropriate" for him to discuss it.

It's also not clear whether Holder's comments signal a shift in Obama administration attitudes that could result in a resolution of the charges against Snowden. Melanie Newman, chief spokeswoman for Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Holder's successor, immediately shot down the idea that the Justice Department was softening its stance on Snowden.

"This is an ongoing case so I am not going to get into specific details but I can say our position regarding bringing Edward Snowden back to the United States to face charges has not changed," she said in an email.

Three sources familiar with informal discussions of Snowden's case told Yahoo News that one top U.S. intelligence official, Robert Litt, the chief counsel to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, recently privately floated the idea that the government might be open to a plea bargain in which Snowden returns to the United States, pleads guilty to one felony count and receives a prison sentence of three to five years in exchange for full cooperation with the government.

Shadow

unread,

Jul 8, 2015, 8:35:46 AM7/8/15

to

On Mon, 6 Jul 2015 15:51:50 -0700 (PDT), thinbl...@gmail.com
wrote:

>> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>>
>> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/the-starr-report-how-to-i_2_b_71821.html

Americans make me laugh. They probably read the bible for the
dirty bits.
BTW, the bit about sex with a donkey is HOT !!!!

>
>
>Eric Holder: The Justice Department could strike deal with Edward Snowden
>Michael Isikoff Chief Investigative Correspondent July 6, 2015
>https://www.yahoo.com/politics/eric-holder-the-justice-department-could-strike-123393663066.html

I'm sure the NSA taught Snowden to never trust a lawyer. He'll
be OK.
[]'s

--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

thinbluemime

unread,

Jun 7, 2013, 3:04:50 PM6/7/13

to

Why this is marked as abuse? It has been marked as abuse.

Report not abuse

2013-06-07
Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w

1997-03-29

thinbluemime

unread,

Jun 9, 2013, 9:21:09 AM6/9/13

to

On Fri, 07 Jun 2013 20:04:50 +0100, thinbluemime <thinbl...@gmail.com>
wrote:

What was the Israeli involvement in collecting U.S. communications intel
for NSA?

Israeli high-tech firms Verint and Narus have had connections with U.S.
companies and Israeli intelligence

TheMarker, Haaretz, The Associated Press and Reuters Jun.08, 2013
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/how-was-israel-involved-in-collecting-u-s-communications-intel-for-nsa-1.528529

Were Israeli companies Verint and Narus the ones that collected
information from the U.S. communications network for the National Security
Agency?

The question arises amid controversy over revelations that the NSA has
been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans
every day, creating a database through which it can learn whether terror
suspects have been in contact with people in the United States. It also
was disclosed this week that the NSA has been gathering all Internet usage
- audio, video, photographs, emails and searches - from nine major U.S.
Internet providers, including Microsoft and Google, in hopes of detecting
suspicious behavior that begins overseas.

According to an article in the American technology magazine "Wired" from
April 2012, two Israeli companies – which the magazine describes as having
close connections to the Israeli security community – conduct bugging and
wiretapping for the NSA.

Verint, which took over its parent company Comverse Technology earlier
this year, is responsible for tapping the communication lines of the
American telephone giant Verizon, according to a past Verizon employee
sited by James Bamford in Wired. Neither Verint nor Verizon commented on
the matter.

Natus, which was acquired in 2010 by the American company Boeing, supplied
the software and hardware used at AT&T wiretapping rooms, according to
whistleblower Mark Klein, who revealed the information in 2004. Klein, a
past technician at AT&T who filed a suit against the company for spying on
its customers, revealed a "secret room" in the company's San Fransisco
office, where the NSA collected data on American citizens' telephone calls
and Internet surfing.

Klein's claims were reinforced by former NSA employee Thomas Drake who
testified that the agency uses a program produced by Narus to save the
personal electrical communications of AT&T customers.

Both Verint and Narus have ties to the Israeli intelligence agency and the
Israel Defense Forces intelligence-gathering unit 8200. Hanan Gefen, a
former commander of the 8200 unit, told Forbes magazine in 2007 that
Comverse's technology, which was formerly the parent company of Verint and
merged with it this year, was directly influenced by the technology of
8200. Ori Cohen, one of the founders of Narus, told Fortune magazine in
2001 that his partners had done technology work for the Israeli
intelligence.

International intel

The question of whether intelligence communities outside the United States
were involved has been raised. According to The Guardian, the Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain's intelligence agency,
secretly collected intelligence information from the world's largest
Internet companies via the American program PRISM. According to a top
secret document obtained by The Guardian, GCHQ had access to PRISM since
2010 and it used the information to prepare 197 intelligence reports last
year. In a statement to the Guardian, GCHQ, said it "takes its obligations
under the law very seriously."

According to The Guardian, details of GCHQ's use of PRISM are set out in a
41-page PowerPoint presentation prepared for senior NSA analysts, and
describe a "snooping" operation that gave the NSA and FBI access to the
systems of nine Internet giants, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft,
Apple, Yahoo and Skype.

Given the close ties between U.S. and Israeli intelligence, the question
arises as to whether Israeli intelligence, including the Mossad, was party
to the secret.

Obama stands by spies

At turns defensive and defiant, U.S. President Barack Obama stood by the
spy programs revealed this week.

He declared Friday that his country is "going to have to make some
choices" balancing privacy and security, launching a vigorous defense of
formerly secret programs that sweep up an estimated 3 billion phone calls
a day and amass Internet data from U.S. providers in an attempt to thwart
terror attacks.

Obama also warned that it will be harder to detect threats against the
United States now that the two top-secret tools to target terrorists have
been so thoroughly publicized.

"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls," Obama assured the nation
after two days of reports that many found unsettling. What the government
is doing, he said, is digesting phone numbers and the durations of calls,
seeking links that might "identify potential leads with respect to folks
who might engage in terrorism." If there's a hit, he said, "if the
intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call,
they've got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a
criminal investigation."

Tapping thwarted terror attack

While Obama said the aim of the programs is to make America safe, he
offered no specifics about how the surveillance programs have done this.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., on Thursday
said the phone records sweeps had thwarted a domestic terror attack, but
he also didn't offer specifics.

U.S. government sources said on Friday that the attack in question was an
Islamist militant plot to bomb the New York City subway system in 2009.

Obama asserted his administration had tightened the phone records
collection program since it started in the George W. Bush administration
and is auditing the programs to ensure that measures to protect Americans'
privacy are heeded - part of what he called efforts to resist a mindset of
"you know, `Trust me, we're doing the right thing. We know who the bad
guys are.'"

But again, he provided no details on how the program was tightened or what
the audit is looking at.

Obama: 100% privacy is impossible

The furor this week has divided Congress, and led civil liberties
advocates and some constitutional scholars to accuse Obama of crossing a
line in the name of rooting out terror threats.

Obama, himself a constitutional lawyer, strove to calm Americans' fears -
but also remind them that Congress and the courts had signed off on the
surveillance.

"I think the American people understand that there are some trade-offs
involved," Obama said when questioned by reporters at a health care event
in San Jose, California.

"It's important to recognize that you can't have 100 percent security and
also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience," he said.
"We're going to have to make some choices as a society. And what I can say
is that in evaluating these programs, they make a difference in our
capacity to anticipate and prevent possible terrorist activity."

Obama said U.S. intelligence officials are looking at phone numbers and
lengths of calls - not at people's names - and not listening in.

The two classified surveillance programs were revealed this week in
newspaper reports that showed, for the first time, how deeply the National
Security Agency dives into telephone and Internet data to look for
security threats. The new details were first reported by The Guardian and
The Washington Post, and prompted Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper to take the unusual and reluctant step of acknowledging the
programs' existence.

Obama echoed intelligence experts - both inside and outside the government
- who predicted that potential attackers will find other, secretive ways
to communicate now that they know that their phone and Internet records
may be targeted.

thinbluemime

unread,

Jun 11, 2013, 8:50:48 AM6/11/13

to

On Sun, 09 Jun 2013 14:21:09 +0100, thinbluemime <thinbl...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Fri, 07 Jun 2013 20:04:50 +0100, thinbluemime
> <thinbl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> 2013-06-07
>> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 1997-03-29
>> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>>
>> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf
>
>
>
> What was the Israeli involvement in collecting U.S. communications intel
> for NSA?
>
> Israeli high-tech firms Verint and Narus have had connections with U.S.
> companies and Israeli intelligence
>
> TheMarker, Haaretz, The Associated Press and Reuters Jun.08, 2013
> http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/how-was-israel-involved-in-collecting-u-s-communications-intel-for-nsa-1.528529
>

> Were Israeli companies Verint and Narus the ones that collected
> information from the U.S. communications network for the National
> Security Agency?

Digital Blackwater: How the NSA Gives Private Contractors Control of the
Surveillance State
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/11/digital_blackwater_how_the_nsa_gives

Over the past decade, the U.S. intelligence community has relied
increasingly on the technical expertise of private firms such as Booz
Allen, According to the journalist Tim Shorrock, about 70 percent of the
national intelligence budget is spent on the private sector.

AARON MATÉ: During his interview with The Guardian, Edward Snowden claimed
he had the power to spy on anyone, including the president.

AMY GOODMAN: And Narus is owned by Boeing?

TIM SHORROCK: Boeing. It was bought by Boeing. It was actually—the company
originated, actually, in Israel. You know, Israel has a very powerful
equivalent to the National Security Agency. And it came out of—it came out
of Israel, and then they brought their technology here, and they were very
involved in the wiretapping right after—right after 9/11.

thinbluemime

unread,

Jun 16, 2013, 3:42:25 PM6/16/13

to

On Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:50:48 +0100, thinbluemime <thinbl...@gmail.com>

Published: 12/12/01 FOX News

BRIT HUME, HOST: It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working
for the Navy was charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard
pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life
sentence. At first, Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue
operation, but later took responsibility for his work.

Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are
Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S., who may
have known things they didn't tell us before September 11. Fox News
correspondent Carl Cameron has details in the first of a four-part series.

CAMERON: ...in the days ahead, we'll take a look at the U.S. phone system
and law enforcement's methods for wiretaps. And an investigation that both
have been compromised by our friends overseas.

HUME: Carl, what about this question of advanced knowledge of what was
going to happen on 9-11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli
agents may have known something?

CAMERON: It's very explosive information, obviously, and there's a great
deal of evidence that they say they have collected — none of it
necessarily conclusive. It's more when they put it all together. A bigger
question, they say, is how could they not have known?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7545.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7544.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6480.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5133.htm

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Jul 9, 2013, 10:56:47 PM7/9/13

to

unread,

Aug 6, 2013, 1:56:56 PM8/6/13

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:

Judge Napolitano: NSA Spying Will Go To Supreme Court

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBmOxj5QWrU

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Aug 6, 2013, 2:06:02 PM8/6/13

to

Only one lone tape retained for 15 years...?

Remember the one lone stained blue dress was held for two years in secret before being used as a political weapon.

Could there be more tapes, with Slick Willy's voice?

Besides holding those tapes back for a more opportune time, what other reasons could there be for holding back recordings? Could it be to protect sources and methods? What if a foreign embassy WAS actually recording Bill Clinton's phone conversations? Does that sworn testimony seem so absurd since Snowden has revealed he could spy on the President of the United States of America?

"Nobody is listening to your phone calls" has already been shown to be a lie by Barack Obama.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Aug 7, 2013, 12:42:26 PM8/7/13

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:

NSA analyst ‘improperly accessed’ Bill Clinton’s e-mail through domestic surveillance program.
By Matt Corley on June 17, 2009
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/06/17/46176/nsa-bill-clinton-email/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

The New York Times reports today that members of Congress are increasingly concerned about the extent of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, particularly the overcollection of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans. An anonymous former intelligence analyst tells reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau that during much of the Bush years, the NSA “tolerated significant collection and examination of domestic e-mail messages without warrants.” Reportedly, one of the accessed domestic e-mail accounts belonged to former President Bill Clinton:

He said he and other analysts were trained to use a secret database, code-named Pinwale, in 2005 that archived foreign and domestic e-mail messages. He said Pinwale allowed N.S.A. analysts to read large volumes of e-mail messages to and from Americans as long as they fell within certain limits — no more than 30 percent of any database search, he recalled being told — and Americans were not explicitly singled out in the searches.

The former analyst added that his instructors had warned against committing any abuses, telling his class that another analyst had been investigated because he had improperly accessed the personal e-mail of former President Bill Clinton.

-------------

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/IubnwmCa3KoJ

The Starmaker

unread,

Aug 7, 2013, 2:22:57 PM8/7/13

to

thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:
> > 2013-06-07
> > Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 1997-03-29
> > "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> > conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> > embassy was tapping his telephones"
> >
> > http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf
>
> NSA analyst ‘improperly accessed’ Bill Clinton’s e-mail through domestic surveillance program.
> By Matt Corley on June 17, 2009
> http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/06/17/46176/nsa-bill-clinton-email/
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all
>
> The New York Times reports today that members of Congress are increasingly concerned about the extent of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, particularly the overcollection of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans. An anonymous former intelligence analyst tells reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau that during much of the Bush years, the NSA “tolerated significant collection and examination of domestic e-mail messages without warrants.” Reportedly, one of the acces
>

> He said he and other analysts were trained to use a secret database, code-named Pinwale, in 2005 that archived foreign and domestic e-mail messages. He said Pinwale allowed N.S.A. analysts to read large volumes of e-mail messages to and from Americans as long as they fell within certain limits — no more than 30 percent of any database search, he recalled being told — and Americans were not explicitly singled out in the searches.
>
> The former analyst added that his instructors had warned against committing any abuses, telling his class that another analyst had been investigated because he had improperly accessed the personal e-mail of former President Bill Clinton.
>
> -------------
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/IubnwmCa3KoJ

What Obama is tryin to tell you, missthinbluemine is...Nobody Is
Listening to Your Phone Calls.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Aug 7, 2013, 2:32:46 PM8/7/13

to

What the President is telling the American people is technically correct but highly misleading to the very point of telling a blatant lie.

Nobody is listening to your phone call is misleading because it would be physically impossible for any human or group of humans to listen to all 320 million American's communications. But collecting and storing those communications is ongoing and happening right now, so when those stored communications are needed by the government, they can be pulled up, like in a google search, and listened to or read, for what ever nefarious purpose those in power have decided to use them.

Like Bill Clinton's old emails and taped phone conversations that are being used today for political leverage, those communications were collected between 5 to 15 years ago... that is what awaits every single United States citizen if this surveillance madness isn't stopped.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Aug 11, 2013, 2:50:22 PM8/11/13

to

On Wednesday, August 7, 2013 7:32:46 PM UTC+1, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 7, 2013 7:22:57 PM UTC+1, The Starmaker wrote:
> > thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > > On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:
> > > > 2013-06-07
> > > > Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > 1997-03-29
> > > > "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> > > > conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> > > > embassy was tapping his telephones"
> > > >

> > What Obama is tryin to tell you, missthinbluemine is...Nobody Is
> > Listening to Your Phone Calls.
>
> What the President is telling the American people is technically correct but highly misleading to the very point of telling a blatant lie.
>
> Nobody is listening to your phone call is misleading because it would be physically impossible for any human or group of humans to listen to all 320 million American's communications. But collecting and storing those communications is ongoing and happening right now, so when those stored communications are needed by the government, they can be pulled up, like in a google search, and listened to or read, for what ever nefarious purpose those in power have decided to use them.
>
> Like Bill Clinton's old emails and taped phone conversations that are being used today for political leverage, those communications were collected between 5 to 15 years ago... that is what awaits every single United States citizen if this surveillance madness isn't stopped.

NSA loophole allows warrantless search for US citizens' emails and phone calls

Exclusive: Spy agency has secret backdoor permission to search databases for individual Americans' communications

James Ball and Spencer Ackerman Friday 9 August 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls

Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, has obliquely warned for months that the NSA's retention of Americans' communications incidentally collected and its ability to search through it has been far more extensive than intelligence officials have stated publicly.

Speaking this week, Wyden told the Guardian it amounts to a "backdoor search" through Americans' communications data.

"Section 702 was intended to give the government new authorities to collect the communications of individuals believed to be foreigners outside the US, but the intelligence community has been unable to tell Congress how many Americans have had their communications swept up in that collection," he said.

"Once Americans' communications are collected, a gap in the law that I call the 'back-door searches loophole' allows the government to potentially go through these communications and conduct warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans."

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Aug 13, 2013, 2:10:35 PM8/13/13

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:

Owner of Snowden’s Email Service on Why He Closed Lavabit Rather Than Comply With Gov’t
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/13/exclusive_owner_of_snowdens_email_service

AARON MATÉ: And, Ladar, during this time, you’ve complied with other government subpoenas. Is that correct?

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, we’ve probably had at least two dozen subpoenas over the last 10 years, from local sheriffs’ offices all the way up to federal courts. And obviously I can’t speak to any particular one, but we’ve always complied with them. I think it’s important to note that, you know, I’ve always complied with the law. It’s just in this particular case I felt that complying with the law—

JESSE BINNALL: And we do have to be careful at this point.

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, I—

JESSE BINNALL: But I think he can speak philosophically about the—his philosophy behind Lavabit and why it would lead to his decision to shut down.

LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, I have—

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Jesse Binnall, by the way. And, Jesse, how difficult is this for Ladar Levison, what he can say, what he can’t say? How high are the stakes here?

JESSE BINNALL: The stakes are very high. It’s a very unfortunate situation that, as Americans, we really are not supposed to have to worry about. But Ladar is in a situation where he has to watch every word he says when he’s talking to the press, for fear of being imprisoned. And we can’t even talk about what the legal requirements are that make it so he has to watch his words. But the simple fact is, I’m really here with him only because there are some very fine lines that he can’t cross, for fear of being dragged away in handcuffs. And that’s pretty much the exact fears that led the founders to give us the First Amendment in the first place. So it’s high stakes.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Aug 30, 2013, 12:16:10 AM8/30/13

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:

Leaked documents reveal US sees Israel as a spying threat (Video)
By Julian Pecquet - 08/29/13
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/319513-leaked-documents-reveal-us-sees-israel-as-a-major-spying-threat

The Obama administration views Israel as one of the top spying threats facing its intelligence services, leaked documents reveal.

A secret budget request obtained by The Washington Post from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden lumps Israel alongside U.S. foes Iran and Cuba as “key targets” for U.S. counterintelligence efforts. The document suggests Israel does not believe U.S. assurances that its interests are aligned with Israel's on crucial issues such as Iran and peace talks with the Palestinians.

“To further safeguard our classified networks, we continue to strengthen insider threat detection capabilities across the Community,” reads the FY 2013 congressional budget justification for intelligence programs. “In addition, we are investing in target surveillance and offensive CI [counterintelligence] against key targets, such as China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Cuba.”

The White House and the Israeli Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.

The revelations come as no surprise to Georgetown University's Paul Pillar, who retired as the national intelligence officer for the Near East in 1995 after a 28-year career in U.S. intelligence. Israeli spying, he said, has remained a major threat since U.S. citizen Jonathan Pollard received a life sentence in 1987 in a massive spying case that gravely strained relations between the two countries.

“Israel should be assumed to continue to have an aggressive intelligence collection operations against the United States,” Pillar said. While much information is collected through traditional political contacts, “I would personally have no doubt that that is supplemented by whatever means they can use to find out as much as they can about what we're doing, thinking, deciding on anything of interest to Israel, which would include just about any Middle Eastern topic.”

The issues of continued Israeli settlement construction and Obama's strong interest in reaching a negotiated settlement to avoid a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, Pillar said, are two issues where U.S. and Israeli interests “certainly diverge,” he said. Spying, he said, could give Israel “warning indicators” before any public decisions, and enable the country to put its “political machine in action” and get the United States to reconsider.

“If I were in [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's shoes and had his perspective,” Pillar said, “I would spare no effort to try to collect every bit of intelligence I could, in secret as well as openly.”

He said the public revelations won't impact U.S.-Israeli relations.

“Everything is trumped by political realities,” Pillar said. “Don't expect any statement by the White House press secretary tomorrow that says, 'Oh my gosh, we are really upset with the Israelis for trying to spy on us'. You're never going to hear anything like that, because politically it is hazardous for basically any American politician – and certainly an incumbent American administration – to underscore ... the divergence of U.S. and Israeli interests.”

thinbluemime

unread,

Sep 11, 2013, 1:20:50 PM9/11/13

to

On Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:16:10 -0400, <thinbl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:
>> 2013-06-07
>> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 1997-03-29
>> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>>
>> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf
>
>
> Leaked documents reveal US sees Israel as a spying threat (Video)
> By Julian Pecquet - 08/29/13
> http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/319513-leaked-documents-reveal-us-sees-israel-as-a-major-spying-threat
>
> The Obama administration views Israel as one of the top spying threats
> facing its intelligence services, leaked documents reveal.
>
> A secret budget request obtained by The Washington Post from former NSA
> contractor Edward Snowden lumps Israel alongside U.S. foes Iran and Cuba
> as “key targets” for U.S. counterintelligence efforts. The document
> suggests Israel does not believe U.S. assurances that its interests are
> aligned with Israel's on crucial issues such as Iran and peace talks
> with the Palestinians.

NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel

• Secret deal places no legal limits on use of data by Israelis
• Only official US government communications protected
• Agency insists it complies with rules governing privacy
• Read the NSA and Israel's 'memorandum of understanding'

Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill
theguardian.com, Wednesday 11 September 2013 10.40 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents

The agreement for the US to provide raw intelligence data to Israel was
reached in principle in March 2009, the document shows. Photograph: James
Emery

The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with
Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a
top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward
Snowden reveals.

Bill Steele

unread,

Sep 12, 2013, 3:37:03 PM9/12/13

to

In article <op.w29bs...@kelly-morrows-macbook-2.local>,

thinbluemime <thinbl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The agreement for the US to provide raw intelligence data to Israel was
> reached in principle in March 2009, the document shows.

Did all this happen because that girl on Covert Affairs fell in love
with an Israeli agent?

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Oct 25, 2013, 4:20:05 PM10/25/13

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:

IRONY ALERT - Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls

He should’ve taken the quiet car.

But that’s not what Michael Hayden did on Thursday afternoon as he boarded Acela No. 2170, bound for New York.

Instead, the former NSA director nestled into a regular coach seat and soon began what for many travelers is an Amtrak ritual: talking, often nonstop, on a cellphone as the train rolled on.

A passenger a few seats away couldn’t help but be intrigued by the conversation, which included chatter about President Obama’s 2008 BlackBerry, specially modified to block foreign eavesdropping.

Inside former NSA chief Michael Hayden’s ‘interview’ with an Amtrak live-tweeter
Brian Fung October 24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/24/inside-former-nsa-chief-michael-haydens-interview-with-an-amtrak-live-tweeter/

Could it be James Clapper? Tom Matzzie wondered, referring to the director of national intelligence. But why would a sitting official be talking so openly about CIA black sites and rendition?

It took nearly half an hour, but then it clicked for Matzzie, a former Washington director of the political group MoveOn.org. He whipped out his phone and began tweeting.

“Former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden on Acela behind me blabbing ‘on background as a former senior admin official,’ ” Matzzie wrote. “Sounds defensive.”

For the next 15 minutes, the accidental eavesdropper gave periodic — and detailed — updates about Hayden’s conversation. At one point, Hayden dropped the name “Massimo,” which led Matzzie to suspect Hayden was talking to Time’s national security reporter, Massimo Calabresi.

“Michael Hayden on Acela giving reporters disparaging quotes about admin,” wrote Matzzie. “‘Remember, just refer as former senior admin.’ ”

Reached by phone Thursday evening, Hayden denied chastising the Obama administration.

“I didn’t criticize the president,” Hayden told the Post. “I actually said these are very difficult issues. I said I had political guidance, too, that limited the things that I did when I was director of NSA. Now that political guidance [for current officials] is going to be more robust. It wasn’t a criticism.”

He said he told Calabresi that Obama's decision to use a Blackberry put his communications at risk from foreign spy services, and the NSA decided they needed to make his device more secure.

Matzzie, Hayden said, "got it terribly wrong." He dismissed the tweets as a "[bull----] story from a liberal activist sitting two seats from me on the train hearing intermittent snatches of conversation." (Calabresi did not return calls and an e-mail seeking comment.)

Meanwhile, passing through Philadelphia, Matzzie began to worry. Were his tweets about Hayden’s conversation going to get him in trouble? In the few minutes since he’d started, he’d managed to cause a small explosion on Twitter.

“I am totally busted I think,” he wrote in one tweet. That was followed shortly after by “No rendition yet. Do I have the [guts] to ask him for a photo? #haydenacela”

While a CIA strike team never burst onto the train, someone must have tipped Hayden off, because when the former official finished one of his calls, he got up — and walked straight over.

“Would you like a real interview?” he asked Matzzie.

“I’m not a reporter,” Matzzie replied.

“Everybody’s a reporter,” said Hayden.

The two proceeded to have a conversation about the Fourth Amendment and the NSA’s surveillance activities. They agreed to disagree, but before they parted, Hayden posed with Matzzie for a photo.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Oct 25, 2013, 4:53:03 PM10/25/13

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:

Was ISRAEL behind the hacking of millions of French phones and NOT the U.S.?
Nabila Ramdani 25 October 2013
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2477013/Was-ISRAEL-hacking-millions-French-phones-NOT-U-S--Extraordinary-twist-spying-saga-revealed.html

Extraordinary twist in spying saga revealed

Agents said to have intercepted 70 million calls and text messages a month

France had previously blamed the United States of America

U.S. was first suspected of hacking into Nicolas Sarkozy's phone in 2012

Americans insisted they have never been behind hacking in France

Comes after it emerged German officials are planning trip to U.S. to discuss allegations Angela Merkel's phone was hack by the NSA

The German Chancellor said President Obama's reputation has been shattered on an international scale because of espionage scandal

Israel and not America was behind the hacking of millions of French phones, it was claimed today.

In the latest extraordinary twist in the global eavesdropping scandal, Israeli agents are said to have intercepted more than 70 million calls and text messages a month.

Up until now the French have been blaming the U.S., even summoning the country’s Paris ambassador to provide an explanation.

France first suspected the U.S. of hacking into former president Nicolas Sarkozy's communications network when he was unsuccessfully trying for re-election in 2012

But today’s Le Monde newspaper provides evidence that it was in fact Israeli agents who were listening in.

France first suspected the U.S. of hacking into former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s communications network when he was unsuccessfully trying for re-election in 2012.

Intelligence officials Bernard Barbier and Patrick Pailloux travelled from Paris to Washington to demand an explanation, but the Americans hinted that the Israelis were to blame.

-----------------

Glenn GreenwaldVerified account
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/393794547680956416

Our new article in @LeMondefr : NSA doc suggests it was Israel behind major hack on French presidential palace http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2013/10/25/the-nsa-s-intern-inquiry-about-the-elysee-hacking-revealed_3502734_651865.html …

10:41 AM - 25 Oct 13

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Oct 28, 2013, 11:01:46 PM10/28/13

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:

Feinstein vows 'total review' of NSA
Jeremy Herb - 10/28/13
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/330995-feinstein-blasts-nsas-spying-on-foreign-leaders

Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Monday called for a “total review” of all intelligence collection programs as she criticized the National Security Agency for spying on foreign leaders.

“It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary so that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are fully informed as to what is actually being carried out by the intelligence community," Feinstein said.

Feinstein has been one of the NSA’s staunchest congressional defenders amid the uproar over its phone records surveillance, but she said that the spying on foreign leaders without President Obama’s knowledge was a “big problem.”

“Unlike NSA’s collection of phone records under a court order, it is clear to me that certain surveillance activities have been in effect for more than a decade and that the Senate Intelligence Committee was not satisfactorily informed,” Feinstein said in a statement. “Therefore our oversight needs to be strengthened and increased.”

Feinstein said that she planned to initiate a major review into all of the intelligence community’s collection methods.

“The White House has informed me that collection on our allies will not continue, which I support,” she said. “But as far as I’m concerned, Congress needs to know exactly what our intelligence community is doing."

Feinstein said she was “totally opposed” to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders have expressed outrage over reports that the NSA was spying on Merkel since 2002 and that it spied on 35 world leaders.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Obama was not told of the intelligence gathering on world leaders until this summer.

Feinstein called for the president to be required to approve the kinds of intelligence collection on foreign leaders that was detailed in reports over the past week.

“Unless the United States is engaged in hostilities against a country or there is an emergency need for this type of surveillance, I do not believe the United States should be collecting phone calls or emails of friendly presidents and prime ministers,” Feinstein said.

The Senate Intelligence panel has been preparing to mark-up legislation to reform the NSA’s data collection practices in the wake of the uproar over its phone metadata collection.

The House Intelligence Committee has the NSA director and other top intelligence officials testifying in a rare open hearing on Tuesday as they also prepare to craft legislation.

BTR1701

unread,

Oct 29, 2013, 1:11:16 AM10/29/13

to

In article <3896e0ea-7357-42d4...@googlegroups.com>,

thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:

> Feinstein has been one of the NSA's staunchest congressional defenders amid
> the uproar over its phone records surveillance, but she said that the spying
> on foreign leaders without President Obama's knowledge was a "big problem."

Surrogates claim Obama didn't know about Benghazi, about the IRS
targeting of political groups, about the catastrophe known as the
Obamacare website, about the NSA spying... What is he doing if not his
job? Is there anything that he *does* get briefed on?

Basically Obama's legacy at this point can be summed with one word:
"unaware."

> "Unlike NSA's collection of phone records under a court order, it is clear to
> me that certain surveillance activities have been in effect for more than a
> decade and that the Senate Intelligence Committee was not satisfactorily
> informed," Feinstein said in a statement. "Therefore our oversight needs to
> be strengthened and increased."

And all of you shills who carried water for clearly unconstitutional
practices need to be kicked off that committee.

trotsky

unread,

Oct 29, 2013, 6:20:30 AM10/29/13

to

On 10/29/13 12:11 AM, BTR1701 wrote:
> In article <3896e0ea-7357-42d4...@googlegroups.com>,
> thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Feinstein has been one of the NSA's staunchest congressional defenders amid
>> the uproar over its phone records surveillance, but she said that the spying
>> on foreign leaders without President Obama's knowledge was a "big problem."
>
> Surrogates claim Obama didn't know about Benghazi, about the IRS
> targeting of political groups, about the catastrophe known as the
> Obamacare website, about the NSA spying... What is he doing if not his
> job? Is there anything that he *does* get briefed on?
>
> Basically Obama's legacy at this point can be summed with one word:
> "unaware."

What do you expect to happen, shit for brains? Do you really think
further negativity about anything will help the Repug's poll numbers?
You guys are so blindingly motherfucking stupid you fall into the same
trap over and over and over. I'm listening to Joe Scarborough right now
saying over and over and over "What did Obama know and when did he know
it?" as if he was trying to claim Saddam Hussein was trying to buy
yellowcake uranium and lie to the American people about starting the
"Iraq War". The only thing liberals can do is tell you over and over
and over again that you're course of action is killing your party dead,
and ten percent of the population is not going to win you many elections
regardless of much gerrymandering and redistricting you dickheads do.
What part of this is confusing for you you stupid cunt?

--
Never post something on the internet unless you have a point of
reference. You will look like a moron otherwise.

BTR1701

unread,

Oct 29, 2013, 11:55:34 AM10/29/13

to

In article <8vCdnTepI-ZyFvLP...@mchsi.com>,

trotsky <gms...@email.com> wrote:

> On 10/29/13 12:11 AM, BTR1701 wrote:
> > In article <3896e0ea-7357-42d4...@googlegroups.com>,
> > thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> >> Feinstein has been one of the NSA's staunchest congressional
> >> defenders amid the uproar over its phone records surveillance,
> >> but she said that the spying on foreign leaders without President
> >> Obama's knowledge was a "big problem."
> >
> > Surrogates claim Obama didn't know about Benghazi, about the IRS
> > targeting of political groups, about the catastrophe known as the
> > Obamacare website, about the NSA spying... What is he doing if not his
> > job? Is there anything that he *does* get briefed on?
> >
> > Basically Obama's legacy at this point can be summed with one word:
> > "unaware."

> What do you expect to happen?

A president who actually knows what's going on.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Oct 29, 2013, 1:37:57 PM10/29/13

to

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 3:01:46 AM UTC, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:
> > 2013-06-07
> > Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 1997-03-29
> > "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> > conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> > embassy was tapping his telephones"
> >
> > http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf
>
>
>
> Feinstein vows 'total review' of NSA
> Jeremy Herb - 10/28/13
> http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/330995-feinstein-blasts-nsas-spying-on-foreign-leaders
>
>
>
>
>
> Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Monday called for a “total review” of all intelligence collection programs as she criticized the National Security Agency for spying on foreign leaders.
>
> “It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary so that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are fully informed as to what is actually being carried out by the intelligence community," Feinstein said.
>
>
> Feinstein has been one of the NSA’s staunchest congressional defenders amid the uproar over its phone records surveillance, but she said that the spying on foreign leaders without President Obama’s knowledge was a “big problem.”
>

Has John McCain Been Chatting Up Bibi on a Tapped Phone?
October 28, 2013 by emptywheel
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/10/28/has-john-mccain-been-chatting-up-bibi-on-a-tapped-phone/

Even more than Dianne Feinstein’s so-called reversal on the NSA, I’m intrigued by John McCain’s.

“We have always eavesdropped on people around the world. But the advance of technology has given us enormous capabilities, and I think you might make an argument that some of this capability has been very offensive both to us and to our allies,” McCain said. “Eavesdropping on someone’s private cellphone obviously is something that is offensive to the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

[snip]

“I think it may even call for a select committee, perhaps even bicameral, when you look at the damage that this has done to our relationship with some of our closest friends and allies,” said McCain, who was the unsuccessful GOP presidential nominee pitted against Obama in 2008. Still, McCain noted that foreign governments are not “innocent” because they also have spied on the U.S. government.

In the past, McCain hasn’t been uncritical in his comments on NSA, but he has used it to fearmonger about terrorists. More tellingly, he favors NSA taking the lead in Internet monitoring for domestic cybersecurity, effectively advocating for domestic spying. And yet now he’s squeamish because we’re wiretapping leaders of other countries?

Sure, it may be he’s just latching onto an issue to attack Obama on. Though who needs a new one given that 60 Minutes has resuscitated the old one?

Of course, McCain is the kind of guy who likes to freelance on foreign policy issues, frequently to pressure Obama from the right. And I can’t help but note that Bibi Netanyahu and Obama spoke today for no apparent reason aside from “regular consultations.”

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke by phone today as part of their regular consultations. The two leaders discussed recent developments related to Iran, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and other regional issues. The two leaders agreed to continue their close coordination on a range of security issues.

While there has been no public report that we tapped Bibi, and while I’m sure the Israelis take his security very seriously, he’s precisely the kind of frenemy I could see the government prioritizing. And while I’m sure Germany spies on us (ineffectively), McCain knows that Israel spies on (and hacks) us extensively, making it a more apt reference as a country that is itself not “innocent.”

Just a gut feel: when the Section 215 database got revealed, a wide range of Senators were up in arms until, in secret briefings, they all of a sudden learned something that calmed their nerves (I strongly believe NSA strips congressional numbers from the Section 215 database on intake). And I think it not outside the realm of possibility that McCain has shown newfound concern about NSA upon learning one of his interlocutors might be targeted as well.

---------------

Netanyahu: No Israeli spies working in United States
May 9, 1997
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9705/09/us.israel.spy/index.html?_s=PM:WORLD

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says reports that his country has a top-level spy in Washington are baseless.

"I say to you with authority Israel does not activate agents in the United States," Netanyahu told Israel's Channel Two television.

The prime minister was responding to a report in the Washington Post on Wednesday that the FBI has ranking U.S. officials under surveillance on suspicion that one of them may have passed sensitive material to Israel.

The investigation was launched after the FBI intercepted a conversation between an Israeli intelligence officer in Washington and his boss in Tel Aviv, the Post reported.

The conversation reportedly referred to someone code-named "Mega" and indicated this person had passed State Department information to the Israelis in the past.

Israeli officials have denied the allegation, and an Israeli newspaper has reported that "Mega" may have been a mistaken decoding of the word "Elga," which is an Israeli intelligence term for the CIA.
Source: Probe slowed as FBI caught in investigation

U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno has confirmed that there is an investigation into the matter. But sources have told CNN that the counter-intelligence probe is being hindered because the FBI officials themselves may be under investigation.

Those sources also say that high-ranking American security officials now believe that that the allegations of an Israeli spy at the top of the U.S. government are less than likely to be true. But selected key officials are being investigated anyway as a matter of routine.

Netanyahu was asked whether it bothered him that the FBI was listening to Israeli Embassy telephone conversations.

"Usually every sane diplomat, in every state where there are Israeli diplomats, has to assume that the difference between a telephone and a microphone is not great," the prime minister said.

The last major case involving Israeli spying in the United States was 12 years ago, when Jonathon Pollard, a Jewish U.S. Navy intelligence officer, was arrested for passing secrets to Israel. He is serving a life sentence.

In February, the FBI seized computers and documents from the home of a Detroit man suspected of having divulged U.S. military secrets to Israel for the past 10 years

BTR1701

unread,

Oct 29, 2013, 2:59:39 PM10/29/13

to

On Oct 29 2013 3:20 AM, trotsky wrote:

> On 10/29/13 12:11 AM, BTR1701 wrote:
> > In article <3896e0ea-7357-42d4...@googlegroups.com>,
> > thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> >> Feinstein has been one of the NSA's staunchest congressional defenders
amid
> >> the uproar over its phone records surveillance, but she said that the
spying
> >> on foreign leaders without President Obama's knowledge was a "big
problem."
> >
> > Surrogates claim Obama didn't know about Benghazi, about the IRS
> > targeting of political groups, about the catastrophe known as the
> > Obamacare website, about the NSA spying... What is he doing if not his
> > job? Is there anything that he *does* get briefed on?
> >
> > Basically Obama's legacy at this point can be summed with one word:
> > "unaware."
>
>

> What do you expect to happen?

Here, maybe John Stewart can explain it to you.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-28-2013/wait-wait----don-t-tell-him-

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Oct 29, 2013, 3:29:42 PM10/29/13

to

The President knows.

The President lied.

The question is, WHY DID HE LIE?

---------

The out-of-control NSA
Eugene Robinson
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-the-out-of-control-nsa/2013/10/28/49645872-4008-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html

Let’s get this straight: The National Security Agency (NSA) snooped on the cellphone conversations of German Chancellor Angela Merkel? Perhaps for as long as a decade? And President Obama didn’t know a thing about it?

Either somebody’s lying or Obama needs to acknowledge that the NSA, in its quest for omniscience beyond anything Orwell could have imagined, is simply out of control.

trotsky

unread,

Oct 29, 2013, 5:18:34 PM10/29/13

to

unread,

Oct 30, 2013, 7:32:55 AM10/30/13

to

Nope, still comes up with the error message. Care to revise your
bullshit story?

trotsky

unread,

Oct 30, 2013, 7:33:41 AM10/30/13

to

Straw man argument. Care to guess again? You can do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

trotsky

unread,

Oct 30, 2013, 7:38:02 AM10/30/13

to

Just for clarification, I went back to the original link you posted. It
was missing the hyphen at the end, which, of course, you didn't mention,
because, as I've said before, you'd fuck your own mother if you thought
it would help.

BTR1701

unread,

Oct 30, 2013, 10:01:15 AM10/30/13

to

In article <irKdnSU-7J4Lc-3P...@mchsi.com>,

trotsky <gms...@email.com> wrote:

> On 10/29/13 6:55 PM, BTR1701 wrote:
> > In article <EfOdnU5G5vi3u-3P...@mchsi.com>,
> > trotsky <gms...@email.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On 10/29/13 10:55 AM, BTR1701 wrote:
> >>> In article <8vCdnTepI-ZyFvLP...@mchsi.com>,
> >>> trotsky <gms...@email.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On 10/29/13 12:11 AM, BTR1701 wrote:
> >>>>> In article <3896e0ea-7357-42d4...@googlegroups.com>,
> >>>>> thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Feinstein has been one of the NSA's staunchest congressional
> >>>>>> defenders amid the uproar over its phone records surveillance,
> >>>>>> but she said that the spying on foreign leaders without President
> >>>>>> Obama's knowledge was a "big problem."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Surrogates claim Obama didn't know about Benghazi, about the IRS
> >>>>> targeting of political groups, about the catastrophe known as the
> >>>>> Obamacare website, about the NSA spying... What is he doing if not his
> >>>>> job? Is there anything that he *does* get briefed on?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Basically Obama's legacy at this point can be summed with one word:
> >>>>> "unaware."
> >>>
> >>>> What do you expect to happen?
> >>>
> >>> A president who actually knows what's going on.

> >> Ho hum, an anonyshit who is afraid to respond to the gist of the post.
> >

> > It was the leading topic sentence in your paragraph, Hutt. If that
> > wasn't the gist, you need to go back to basic grammar school.

> Straw man argument.

Straw man /= everything that makes you look bad, Hutt.

BTR1701

unread,

Oct 30, 2013, 10:15:05 AM10/30/13

to

In article <irKdnSQ-7J4Bcu3P...@mchsi.com>,

Why would I have mentioned it, Hutt? It was part of the link I posted. I
can only post the link. I can't account for people like you too stupid
to copy and paste the whole thing.

Is this how you expect people to post links for you?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-28-2013/wait-wait----don-t-
tell-him-

Note: Link begins with an 'h'
Note: Next character is a 't'
Note: Next character is a 't'
Note: Next character is a 'p'
Note: Next character is a ':'
Note: Next character is a '/'
Note: Next character is a '/'
Note: Next character is a 'w'
Note: Next character is a 'w'
Note: Next character is a 'w'
Note: Next character is a '.'

etc. all the way to

Note: The last character is a '-'

You're an idiot, Hutt.

suzeeq

unread,

Oct 30, 2013, 11:19:13 AM10/30/13

to

The link wraps in the newsreader, try it below. Of course it's missing
the .html extension or whatever it should end with, so maybe it won't
open without it.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-28-2013/wait-wait----don-t-tell-him-

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

BTR1701

unread,

Oct 31, 2013, 10:56:11 AM10/31/13

to

In article <TK6dnSgmZL2tr-_P...@mchsi.com>,

trotsky <gms...@email.com> wrote:

> On 10/30/13 2:36 PM, BTR1701 wrote:
> > On Oct 30 2013 11:26 AM, trotsky wrote:
> >
> >> On 10/30/13 9:15 AM, BTR1701 wrote:
>
> >>> Why would I have mentioned it, Hutt? It was part of the link I posted.
> >
> >> You're either stupid or lying.
> >
> > All you have to do is look back up the thread.
>
>
> I looked back in the thread, twice. I clicked the link, twice. I could
> give the benefit of the doubt and say because of line lengths the
> missing hyphen was on the next line, but that begs the question why the
> link works the second time you posted it.

Because you're an idiot that took that long to figure it out.

unread,

Nov 5, 2013, 1:35:29 PM11/5/13

to

Yes, I know, WND is very right wing, but the accompanying poll, though probably highly skewed by the WND readership, is interesting.

Any idea why the administration is so aggressively removing top military personnel? Just the number two poll question mentioning 'coup' is incredibly interesting.

WND POLL:

Is Obama purging U.S. military of top officers because of politics?

Yes, he's purging those who owe allegiance to Constitution in favor of allegiance to him (83%, 995 Votes)

Yes, it's what they do in the Third World to avoid coups (7%, 83 Votes)

Yes, because of neo-Marxist politics to be precise (6%, 71 Votes)
I don't know, but I feel there's something really wrong going on (3%, 38 Votes)

Other (less than 1%, 7 Votes)
No, it's called the changing of the guard and happens in every administration (less than 1%, 2 Votes)
No, he's just making sure that women, minorities and LGBT officers are well-represented (less than 1%, 2 Votes)
No, he's just reminding the military that it is run by a civilian (0%, 0 Votes)
No, he's just cleaning house of old, dead wood (0%, 0 Votes)
Yes, and it's about time (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 1,198

'Purge surge': Obama fires another commander
Naval commanding officer alarmed by 'relentless' attack on Armed Forces
http://www.wnd.com/2013/11/purge-surge-obama-fires-another-commander/

Barb May

unread,

Nov 5, 2013, 2:53:32 PM11/5/13

to

thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 5, 2013 1:20:11 PM UTC-5, Barb May wrote:
>> thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> WASHINGTON – After multiple top generals described to WND
>>
>> FAIL
>> --
>> Barb
>
> Yes, I know, WND is very right wing, but the accompanying poll,
> though probably highly skewed by the WND readership, is interesting.

No it's not. It's the predictable response to any anti-Obama question
posed to WND readers.

> Any idea why the administration is so aggressively removing top
> military personnel?

I don't accept the premise. People are being removed alright -- for
cause. They bring it on themselves. Either they won't support their
commander in chief as they are required to do, or they can't keep their
mouths shut about things they disagree with like gays in the military
and women in combat.

Here are some quotes from the article about the source of this nonsense:

"He referred specifically to the recent repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell,” which now allows openly homosexual personnel in the military. In
addition, he said the integration of women into the infantry “will
reduce readiness of units.” He also was critical of the rules of
engagement which he says favor “political correctness over our ability
to fight to win.” Brady referred to additional problems in today’s
military including “girly-men leadership [and] medals for not shooting
and operating a computer. This president will never fight if there is
any reason to avoid it and with a helpless military he can just point to
our weakness and shrug his shoulders.” "Brady made similar references in
a recent article he wrote for WND..." "Boykin said that no one in the
military has ever raised the issue of a “coup.” However, civilians with
no military experience have raised this issue with him and commented
that the military needs to “fulfill [its] constitutional duty and take
over the government,’”

I think that last bit is very telling. That he would even bring this up
speaks volumes about where his head is at. People who would write to him
and advocate a military coup must think that he would be receptive to
the idea and why shouldn't they, given his writings.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/no-americas-generals-arent-planning-a-coup/
"Now, Boykin is a well-known crank and Brady is a 77-year-old but
less-known crank. Both hold prominent positions in very socially
conservative organizations." "Lots of officers, especially top officers,
disagree with Obama on these issues. But nobody is being fired for mere
disagreement." "I’ve not noticed any especial acceleration of
retirements, much less any “purge.”

"...some significant number of military personnel are unhappy with rapid
changes to their culture. But almost all of them are choosing among
their two available options: shut the hell up or get the hell out. Those
few who choose to stay in and undermine the civilian leadership are
appropriately being punished."

> Just the number two poll question mentioning
> 'coup' is incredibly interesting.

As a measure of the insanity of the WND readership.
--
Barb

Dano

unread,

Nov 5, 2013, 3:15:47 PM11/5/13

to

"Barb May" wrote in message news:l5bic3$461$1...@dont-email.me...

===========================================================

Anyone who can't understand that WND is a far right publication is having
some serious issues with reality. For our pointy headed little friend...he
should take a quick trip down memory lane for a refresher as to the
political bent of this "fine" publication. Opinions are like assholes.
Everyone has one. But the opinions trumpeted from this particular pulpit
are pretty damned apparent. Even James Taranto...pretty widely known
conservative...has had issues with these folks.

http://www.wnd.com/2001/09/11034/

In case one would have trouble digesting this entire piece of prose...here's
the last paragraph...from it's publisher...

"This is dangerous, America. It’s happened before in our history. Let’s not
allow it to happen, again. Let’s preserve one of the things that makes
America so special – the free flow of ideas – no matter how much we might
not like them."

I agree with this sentiment actually. And I give him credit for admitting
his own particular political bent. But don't let ANYONE tell you it ain't
what it IS!

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Dec 12, 2013, 3:11:07 PM12/12/13

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>
> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

How Americans Were Deceived About Cell-Phone Location Data
By Conor Friedersdorf Dec 11 2013
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/how-americans-were-deceived-about-cell-phone-location-data/282239/

Shortly after the earliest articles sourced to Edward Snowden appeared, Americans newly aware of the cell phones in their pockets started wondering: Would the NSA ever collect the location data that all of us generate? The possibility proved worrisome to the public and privacy experts alike. A surveillance state that routinely tracked our movement would feel dystopian and enable abuse, as various TV, web, and print commentators noted.

Even Congress seemed to be concerned. A letter signed by 26 senators declared that NSA bulk collection of phone records has a significant impact on privacy.* "This is particularly true if these records are collected in a manner that includes cell phone locational data, effectively turning Americans' cell phones into tracking devices," it stated. "Has the NSA collected or made plans to collect Americans’ cell-site location data in bulk?"

Now we know that the answer is yes.

"The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world," the Washington Post reported on December 4, noting "a vast database that stores information about the locations of at least hundreds of millions of devices." Many Americans are affected by the tactic (emphasis added throughout):

The NSA does not target Americans’ location data by design, but the agency acquires a substantial amount of information on the whereabouts of domestic cellphones “incidentally,” a legal term that connotes a foreseeable but not deliberate result.

One senior collection manager, speaking on the condition of anonymity but with permission from the NSA, said “we are getting vast volumes” of location data from around the world by tapping into the cables that connect mobile networks globally and that serve U.S. cellphones as well as foreign ones. Additionally, data are often collected from the tens of millions of Americans who travel abroad with their cellphones every year.

A subsequent Post article notes that the NSA is also "using commercially gathered information to help it locate mobile devices around the world, the documents show," explaining, "many smartphone apps running on iPhones and Android devices, and the Apple and Google operating systems themselves, track the location of each device, often without a clear warning to the phone's owner." Back in October, we also found out that the NSA had "once tested whether it could track Americans' cell phone locations," and that in doing so, the secretive agency even acquired some "samples" of location data, which it may still have.

Put simply, everyone who feared that the NSA collects location data on Americans was correct. But they didn't learn that back when they expressed those fears.

Quite the contrary. On multiple occasions, Obama Administration officials spoke about the collection of cell-phone location data in ways that were often technically accurate but wildly deceptive. In so doing, they succeeded in confusing the surveillance debate and creating the inaccurate impression that location data wasn't being collected.

This is a review of their deceptions.

Fooling the Wall Street Journal

One of the earliest successes at leading the public astray came in a June 16, 2013, Wall Street Journal article:

The National Security Agency sweeps up data on millions of cellphones and Internet communications under secret court orders. But as it mounts a rigorous defense of its surveillance, the agency has disclosed new details that portray its efforts as tightly controlled and limited in scope, while successful in thwarting potential plots. On Sunday, officials said that though the NSA is authorized to collect "geolocational" information that can pinpoint the location of callers, it chooses not to. A secret court order that was made public earlier this month directed Verizon Communications Inc. to turn over to the NSA "comprehensive communications routing information." Under this authority, NSA would have the ability to collect data on locations of calls placed or received, a U.S. official said Sunday.

Other major phone companies including AT&T and Sprint also operate under similar orders, former officials say.

As part of this program, however, the NSA chooses not to collect such data as the nearest cellphone tower used to place or receive a mobile call, U.S. officials said. In a statement released this weekend, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the NSA program doesn't collect "any cell phone locational information." Such information has been found to be of value to criminal investigators, who can use it to link suspects with crime scenes. However, the U.S. official said the data doesn't provide sufficient intelligence value to justify the resources that would be required to use it.

The U.S. officials were sufficiently misleading with their statements that the WSJ reporters led their readers astray in the lede, where they neglected to include the seemingly unimportant but actually crucial caveat, "as part of this program." That caveat made what their sources told them technically accurate. The NSA apparently wasn't collecting location data as part of its Section 215 bulk-metadata-collection program (the one revealed in that initial Glenn Greenwald story about the NSA getting phone records on all Verizon customers)—it was collecting location data under different programs that had yet to be revealed.

Had the reporters known the truth, they may not have contextualized the story with language about an NSA surveillance effort that is "tightly controlled or limited in scope," and they certainly wouldn't have included the highly misleading line from the official who implied that location data wasn't collected because the resources required didn't justify it. When he said that, massive resources were being expended to collect location data!
Misleading Americans on Capitol Hill

On June 18, General Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, spoke publicly about the Snowden revelations for the first time. He complained that the debate about NSA surveillance was being fueled "by incomplete and inaccurate information, with little context provided on the purpose of these programs, their value to our national security and that of our allies, and the protections that are in place," implying that he would provide a much needed corrective. Addressing the purpose of his testimony before Congress that day, he said that "we will provide additional detail and context on these two programs to help inform that debate," and soon gave the floor to Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

Said Cole:

Let me go through a few of the features of this. First of all, it's metadata. These are phone records. These—this is just like what you would get in your own phone bill. It is the number that was dialed from, the number that was dialed to, the date and the length of time. That's all we get under 215. We do not get the identity of any of the parties to this phone call. We don't get any cell site or location information as to where any of these phones were located. And, most importantly, and you're probably going to hear this about 100 times today, we don't get any content under this. We don't listen in on anybody's calls under this program at all.

Again, this is technically accurate. Cole limited his remarks to data collected under Section 215. At the same time, the context of his testimony was a nation and a legislature upset at revelations of sweeping NSA spying that they didn't know about—and a desire to clarify just how far the secret agency goes in its surveillance. In order to obscure those questions, Alexander and Cole proceed as if everyone is gathered because of an intense and narrow focus on Section 215, which just happened to be the first program that the Snowden leaks made public. The average American watching the hearing on television or hearing a soundbite on the news would understandably conclude from the words spoken that the NSA was not collecting Americans' cell-phone location data.
Misleading Words From the Department of Justice

On June 24, the Los Angeles Times headline seemed definitive enough: "NSA does not collect cellphone location data, officials say." Here's how it begins:

The U.S. Justice Department has told a court in Florida that the government does not secretly track the location of Americans' cellphones as part of its massive phone surveillance dragnet, but asking experts to believe that assertion has proved to be another matter. The basic privacy question raised in the recent revelations—has the government been tracking American phone users?—remains muddied by a vaguely worded, top-secret court order and an ensuing series of carefully worded denials. The Justice Department's response—declining to release secret tracking data on phone locations because it purportedly doesn't have it—almost immediately raised new questions.
DOJ was forced to address the question when a Florida attorney sought cell-phone location data for a client, arguing it would prove his innocence in a criminal case:

His client's phone company, MetroPCS, didn't keep phone location data dating back to 2010, so Louis, citing the leaked court order, said the NSA might be the only entity that still held the old records and thus had an obligation to turn them over. The government's response to Lewis' request, filed with the court last Wednesday, says the NSA does not have such a capability: The agency didn't collect location data under the phone surveillance program, so there were no records to turn over, the court filing said.

"The program described in the classified [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court] order cited by the defense did not acquire such data," the filing stated, adding that "the government has no reason to believe" location data were being held by the government that could be turned over for the criminal case.

Once again, the government statement was sufficiently misleading to cause the newspaper to inadvertently misrepresent the truth in its paraphrase: The government didn't state that location data wasn't being held, just that it wasn't being held under Section 215. DOJ was able to sidestep the request in court in part because the Florida lawyer cited the wrong program when asking for the records. And once again, Americans reading about the story and as yet unaware of programs beyond Section 215 thought, maybe our location date is secure after all.

James Clapper Misleads in a Letter

On July 26, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote a letter to Senator Ron Wyden in which he addressed the civil-libertarian's concerns, including questions about the NSA tracking Americans' location data.

The letter discusses the bulk collection of telephone metadata under Section 215 and what it includes. "As we have repeatedly and publicly said, we are not collecting cell site location information under this program," Clapper wrote. "On October 20, 2011 the Director of the National Security Agency committed to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that he would notify Congress if NSA intended in the future to obtain cell site location information prior to doing so. As you know, he reiterated this commitment before the Committee on 25 June 2013."

This is especially deceitful. Listening to Clapper, the non-paranoid American thinks, Okay, the NSA has promised to notify Congress if it intends to collect cell location data, and as of June 25 it hadn't done so. After all, the answer would make little sense if the NSA was already collecting location data through another program. Clapper's rhetoric implies that isn't happening yet in general.

On a previous occasion, Wyden, who is savvy enough to understand the NSA's rhetorical evasions, specifically asked the more general question: "Has the NSA collected or made any plans to collect Americans' cell-site location data in bulk?" And later in the letter, Clapper takes the question about collection beyond Section 215 and says, "As noted above, under this program NSA is not currently receiving cell site location data, and has no current plans to do so." Cleverly, misleadingly played.
General Alexander's Evasions

By September, Wyden was growing weary of all the evasions, and asked Alexander about collecting location data generally, not just under Section 215:

Alexander trots out the same misleading talking points, reading Clapper's prior response word-for-word. But he does something else too: He starts off by acting as if the surveillance community has already answered the question that Wyden is asking, when actually it has deliberately evaded it.

By this time, anyone who paid close attention to Wyden's hints about NSA overreach or the recurrence of the NSA's weasel language "under this program" knew damned well that, somehow, the NSA was collecting location data. (Keep in mind that Wyden sometimes knows more than he can publicly disclose.) But journalists couldn't report that as fact, and drawing the right conclusion required following the story at a level of detail that was well beyond the vast majority of normal news consumers and most journalists too, guaranteeing that Americans wouldn't know about the collection of location data, including location data on Americans. The blatant obfuscation was very effective at hiding the truth from the masses.
Alexander's Red Herring

On October 2, Alexander revealed a bit of information about location data:

Alexander told the committee that his agency once tested, in 2010 and 2011, whether it could track Americans' cellphone locations, but he says the NSA does not use that capability, leaving that to the FBI to build a criminal or foreign intelligence case against a suspect and track him.

"This may be something that is a future requirement for the country but it is not right now because when we identify a number, we give it to the FBI," Alexander said. "When they get their probable cause, they can get the locational data."

He said if the NSA thought it needed to track someone that way, it would go back to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court—the secret court that authorizes its spying missions—for approval. He added that his agency reported the tests to both House and Senate intelligence committees, and that the data was never used for intelligence analysis.

Notice how the second and third paragraphs give the distinct impression that the NSA isn't collecting cell-phone location data right now, that the NSA has no need to collect it right now, and that it would "go back" to the FISA court if that changed. Yet all the while, location data, including data on Americans, was being collected in bulk.

Interestingly, the revelation of the 2010 and 2011 location-data tests—details of which Clapper declassified later that month—also served as a perfect red herring. Surveillance state watchers who'd heard Wyden's questions had long known the NSA was already doing something with location data. Once the test program was expounded in Clapper's document release, the experienced analysts at Lawfare wrote that "they appear to address questions that Senator Ron Wyden has addressed about the bulk collection of cell phone location data."

They thought the bygone tests were the thing! Actually, Wyden was hinting at far bigger things.

Conclusions

Obama Administration officials carried out all this deception even though they knew that Snowden's cache would likely reveal the truth about the collection of location data. Sure enough, the truth came out a few months later, but it wouldn't be correct to suggest that their efforts had no consequences. Their behavior on this matter perfectly illustrates why neither the press nor the public should ever take anything a surveillance-state official says at face value. Even if they usually (though not always) say things that are technically true, they are also masters of deception, willing to egregiously mislead with their rhetoric if doing so will help them maintain maximum secrecy a bit longer.

Their defenders say they have good reason to behave that way—that their foray into collecting cell-phone location data is a legitimate secret, and that by keeping it for months more, they helped keep America safer. Even if that were the case, however, it wouldn't change the fact that their words cannot be trusted, and that journalists should stop treating their pronouncements as if they come from honest individuals.

Need more proof?

On December 5, after the Washington Post revealed that location data, including data belonging to Americans, is being collected, here's what the White House press secretary said: "I’m not in a position to discuss the details of particular tools and methods of intelligence collection, although yesterday, ODNI stated for the record that no element of the intelligence community is intentionally collecting bulk cell-phone location information about cell phones in the United States."

Like so many that came before it, it is a statement exquisitely crafted to mislead.

__

*Surveillance-state apologists insist that Congress has always been fully briefed on the NSA and a meaningful check on its activities—yet large groups of senators are reduced to sending letters to learn the answers to questions as significant as location tracking.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/how-americans-were-deceived-about-cell-phone-location-data/282239/

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Dec 19, 2013, 12:16:05 AM12/19/13

to

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>

“Americans must never make the mistake of wholly ‘trusting’ our public officials,”

Turn Off the Data Vacuum
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD December 18, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/opinion/turn-off-the-data-vacuum.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf

In the days after one of the biggest national security leaks in United States history revealed the existence of vast, largely unchecked government surveillance programs, President Obama said he would “welcome” a robust national debate over the appropriate balance between protecting national security and respecting individual privacy and civil liberties.

The answer has now landed squarely on Mr. Obama’s desk, with the release late Wednesday afternoon of a remarkably thorough and well-reasoned report calling on the government to end its bulk phone-data collection program and to increase both the transparency and accountability of surveillance programs going forward.

The 300-plus-page report was written by a five-member advisory panel of intelligence and legal experts that was commissioned by the president himself and made 46 recommendations for reform. The recommendations demonstrate how far afield the National Security Agency has wandered in its zeal to vacuum up the phone and Internet data of virtually every American, not to mention world leaders and other non-American citizens.

They also show the lack of regard for the Constitution that has led those efforts, and the virtual absence of supervision and restraint by Mr. Obama and his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

The most far-reaching recommendations are also the most common sense. For example, the report calls for legislation requiring the government to meet a higher standard before it can order a company to turn over private customer records. As it stands, the law puts “extremely broad discretion in the hands of government officials,” the report said.

It also calls for an end to the government’s mass storage of those records, recommending that they be kept by the companies themselves or a private third party in order to prevent government abuse. Otherwise, the report warns, “high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking.”

“Americans must never make the mistake of wholly ‘trusting’ our public officials,” the authors write.

Among its many other important recommendations, the report singles out the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose judges hear arguments in secret from the government alone, with no opposition, and issue classified rulings on significant constitutional issues. The panel said Congress should establish an advocate to argue in those hearings for the privacy and civil liberties interests of the public. And the selection of the court’s judges, which now resides solely in the hands of the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts Jr., should be divided among all the justices of the Supreme Court.

Perhaps most damning of all, the report calls into doubt the central justification for the surveillance dragnet: preventing terrorism. Echoing the finding of a federal judge who ruled on Monday that the phone-data collection program was probably unconstitutional, the report said the data sweep “was not essential to preventing attacks.”

The surveillance programs began before Mr. Obama’s presidency, but he allowed them to continue and grow in unprecedented ways. Lately, he has expressed an openness to reforming the programs themselves and the operations of the intelligence court. One important step would be to support legislation in Congress that would achieve many of the panel’s goals, and codify them to restrain future presidents.

But Mr. Obama need not wait for Congress to act to implement the reforms he said he wants. He can quickly adopt his panel’s recommendation and end the ineffective and constitutionally dangerous dragnet surveillance.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Jan 16, 2014, 6:31:58 PM1/16/14

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>

> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying
PETER BAKER JAN. 15, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/us/obamas-path-from-critic-to-defender-of-spying.html

"aides said Mr. Obama was surprised to learn after leaks by Snowden just how far the surveillance had gone”

WASHINGTON — As a young lawmaker defining himself as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama visited a center for scholars in August 2007 to give a speech on terrorism. He described a surveillance state run amok and vowed to rein it in. “That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens,” he declared. “No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime.”

More than six years later, the onetime constitutional lawyer is now the commander in chief presiding over a surveillance state that some of his own advisers think has once again gotten out of control. On Friday, he will give another speech, this time at the Justice Department defending government spying even as he adjusts it to address a wave of public concern over civil liberties.

The journey between those two speeches reflects the transition from the backbench of the United States Senate to the chair behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Like other presidents before him, the idealistic candidate skeptical of government power found that the tricky trade-offs of national security issues look different to the person charged with using that power to ensure public safety.
In ’07, then-Senator Obama spoke disapprovingly at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars about spying. Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Aides said that even as a senator, Mr. Obama supported robust surveillance as long as it was legal and appropriate, and that as president he still shares the concerns about overreach he expressed years ago. But they said his views have been shaped to a striking degree by the reality of waking up every day in the White House responsible for heading off the myriad threats he finds in his daily intelligence briefings.

“When you get the package every morning, it puts steel in your spine,” said David Plouffe, the president’s longtime adviser. “There are people out there every day who are plotting. The notion that we would put down a tool that would protect people here in America is hard to fathom.”

At the same time, aides said Mr. Obama was surprised to learn after leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, just how far the surveillance had gone. “Things seem to have grown at the N.S.A.,” Mr. Plouffe said, citing specifically the tapping of foreign leaders’ telephones. “I think it was disturbing to most people, and I think he found it disturbing.”

Yet it is hard to express indignation at actions of the government after five years of running it, and some involved in surveillance note that it was Mr. Obama who pushed national security agencies to be aggressive in hunting terrorists. “For some, his outrage does ring a little bit hollow,” said a former counterterrorism official.

All of which leads to worries by critics of government surveillance that he will not go far enough on Friday. “If the speech is anything like what is being reported, the president will go down in history for having retained and defended George W. Bush’s surveillance programs rather than reformed them,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Jan 18, 2014, 8:28:40 PM1/18/14

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
>
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
> 1997-03-29
>
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
>
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
>
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

The President on Mass Surveillance
THE EDITORIAL BOARDJAN. 17, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/opinion/the-president-on-mass-surveillance.html

In the days after Edward Snowden revealed that the United States government was collecting vast amounts of Americans’ data — phone records and other personal information — in the name of national security, President Obama defended the data sweep and said the American people should feel comfortable with its collection.

On Friday, after seven months of increasingly uncomfortable revelations and growing public outcry, Mr. Obama gave a speech that was in large part an admission that he had been wrong.

unread,

Feb 5, 2014, 11:52:25 AM2/5/14

to

thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:

Thinbluemime,

Your cell is a tracking device.
It can be used to track you.

And..you're paying for it.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Mar 17, 2016, 2:45:43 PM3/17/16

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>

> http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1998/09/14/affair.state.html

Sen. Ron Wyden tells us about some of his work relating to the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, including the confrontation between Apple and the Department of Justice.
https://soundcloud.com/thinkoutloudopb/sen-ron-wyden-march-15-2016

Don't Panic - Making Progress on the "Going Dark" Debate
February 1, 2016
https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/dont-panic/Dont_Panic_Making_Progress_on_Going_Dark_Debate.pdf

President Obama Participates in South by Southwest Interactive Discussion
Mar 11, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSEU72jKVmw

"Noteworthy" Ron Wyden Interview on Apple vs FBI: Ask NSA, Ask NSA, Ask NSA
Published March 16, 2016 | By emptywheel
https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/03/16/noteworthy-ron-wyden-on-apple-vs-fbi-ask-nsa-ask-nsa-ask-nsa/

This interview Ron Wyden did with Oregon Public Radio includes a lot of what you might expect from him, including an argument that weakening encryption makes us less safe, including possibly exposing kids (because their location gets identified) to pedophiles.

But the most interesting part of this interview are the three times Ron Wyden made it clear, in his inimitable fashion, that someone better ask NSA whether they can decrypt this phone.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Mar 18, 2016, 1:11:08 AM3/18/16

to

On Tuesday, August 13, 2013 at 2:10:35 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime2 wrote:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/TKa_2s7WUU8J

> On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:04:50 PM UTC+1, thinbluemime wrote:

> > 2013-06-07
> > Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 1997-03-29
> > "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> > conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> > embassy was tapping his telephones"
> >

> > http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf
>
> Owner of Snowden's Email Service on Why He Closed Lavabit Rather Than Comply With Gov't
> Tuesday, August 13, 2013
> http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/13/exclusive_owner_of_snowdens_email_service
>
>
>
>
> AARON MATÉ: And, Ladar, during this time, you've complied with other government subpoenas. Is that correct?
>
> LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, we've probably had at least two dozen subpoenas over the last 10 years, from local sheriffs' offices all the way up to federal courts. And obviously I can't speak to any particular one, but we've always complied with them. I think it's important to note that, you know, I've always complied with the law. It's just in this particular case I felt that complying with the law--
>
> JESSE BINNALL: And we do have to be careful at this point.
>
> LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, I--
>
> JESSE BINNALL: But I think he can speak philosophically about the--his philosophy behind Lavabit and why it would lead to his decision to shut down.
>
> LADAR LEVISON: Yeah, I have--
>
> AMY GOODMAN: That's Jesse Binnall, by the way. And, Jesse, how difficult is this for Ladar Levison, what he can say, what he can't say? How high are the stakes here?
>
> JESSE BINNALL: The stakes are very high. It's a very unfortunate situation that, as Americans, we really are not supposed to have to worry about. But Ladar is in a situation where he has to watch every word he says when he's talking to the press, for fear of being imprisoned. And we can't even talk about what the legal requirements are that make it so he has to watch his words. But the simple fact is, I'm really here with him only because there are some very fine lines that he can't cross, for fear of being dragged away in handcuffs. And that's pretty much the exact fears that led the founders to give us the First Amendment in the first place. So it's high stakes.

A GOVERNMENT ERROR JUST REVEALED SNOWDEN WAS THE TARGET IN THE LAVABIT CASE
KIM ZETTER 03.17.16
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/government-error-just-revealed-snowden-target-lavabit-case/

IT'S BEEN ONE of the worst-kept secrets for years: the identity of the person the government was investigating in 2013 when it served the secure email firm Lavabit with a court order demanding help spying on a particular customer.

Ladar Levison, owner of the now defunct email service, has been forbidden since then, under threat of contempt and possibly jail time, from identifying who the government was investigating. In court documents from the case unsealed in late 2013, all information that could identify the customer was redacted.

But federal authorities recently screwed up and revealed the secret themselves when they published a cache of case documents but failed to redact one identifying piece of information about the target: his email address, Ed_Sn...@lavabit.com. With that, the very authorities holding the threat of jail time over Levison's head if he said anything have confirmed what everyone had long ago presumed: that the target account was Snowden's.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Mar 23, 2016, 3:09:06 PM3/23/16

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"

Yediot Achronot: Israeli Tech Company is 'Outside Source' Offering to Hack Terrorist's iPhone for FBI
March 23, 2016 By Richard Silverstein
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/03/23/ynet-israeli-tech-company-is-outside-source-offering-to-hack-terrorists-iphone-for-fbi/

In an exclusive story, Yediot Achronot reports (Hebrew) that the Israeli high-tech company, Cellebrite, is the "third party" referred to by the FBI in a court filing, which offered to hack Syed Rizwan Farouk's iPhone, so that the agency doesn't need to compel Apple to do it. The report doesn't make clear whether the Israeli company has succeeded in cracking the phone's encryption. But it seems likely the FBI would not have announced a postponement in its case against Apple unless it was fairly confident it had a solution to the problem.

If true, this would be yet another example of Israel's military-intelligence technology being used to penetrate the privacy of terrorists and average citizens world-wide.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Apr 18, 2016, 7:07:29 PM4/18/16

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"

"The ability to intercept cellphone calls through the SS7 network is an open secret among the world's intelligence agencies, including ours, and they don't necessarily want that hole plugged."
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/04/18/60-minutes-asked-a-security-firm-to-hack-an-iphone-and-were-all-basically-screwed/#gref

'60 Minutes' asked a security firm to hack an iPhone and we're all basically screwed
by BRYAN CLARK 2016-04-18
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/04/18/60-minutes-asked-a-security-firm-to-hack-an-iphone-and-were-all-basically-screwed/#gref

Apple's battle with the FBI may have whipped the tech world into a frenzy of establishment-hating wannabe anarchists, but it's this '60 minutes' segment that should really piss you off.

Wanting to find out just how safe our phones are from hackers, the 60 minutes team sought professionals from Security Research Labs to break into Congressman Ted Lieu's iPhone. Lieu, a member of the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Information Technology (an acronym that's dangerously close to spelling h-o-r-s-e-s-h-i-t) agreed to be the team's guinea pig.

While security professionals are abuzz with theories -- ranging from deep freezing the flash memory to creating its own operating system -- on how the FBI accessed the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, it turns out all Security Research Labs needed to access secure data was Congressman Lieu's phone number.

It's not apples-to-apples; the researchers weren't accessing encrypted files or attempting to gain access to the physical device, but what they were able to accomplish with just a phone number is still incredible.

With those digits alone, the team was able to hear and record Lieu's phone calls, track his movement, view his contacts and create a log of all incoming and outgoing calls.

For the Apple haters out there, hold on to your hats... the hack perpetrated on Lieu will work on any phone, using any carrier, running any operating system, and it's all thanks to a security flaw in a piece of technology you've probably never heard of.

Signaling System 7 (SS7) is a global network that connects all phone carriers around the world into a singular hub, of sorts. The hack exploits a known security flaw in SS7, but one that's proven relatively difficult to fix due to the way SS7 is governed, or not governed, in this case.

Currently, SS7 is used by all the world's cellular carrier's, but it's not governed by any of them, or any single government entity either. Instead, it's a sort of global collaboration with a ton of red tape and no real solution on how to close the security holes that plague the world's cell phone users.

It should put you at ease that the world's best hackers probably aren't all that interested in your $300 bank account balance and your impressive collection of reaction GIFs, but it's a scary time to be a smartphone user, nonetheless.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

Apr 30, 2016, 4:20:08 AM4/30/16

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"
>

> http://loufreyinstitute.org/civicsconnection/assets/files/conversations/impeaching_the_president/primary_sources/The%20Starr%20Report.pdf

Hillary Clinton's Damning Emails
April 30, 2016 By Ray McGovern
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/30/hillary-clintons-damning-emails/

A few weeks after leaving office, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have breathed a sigh of relief and reassurance when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper denied reports of the National Security Agency eavesdropping on Americans. After all, Clinton had been handling official business at the State Department like many Americans do with their personal business, on an unsecured server.

In sworn testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 12, 2013, Clapper said the NSA was not collecting, wittingly, "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans," which presumably would have covered Clinton's unsecured emails.

But NSA contractor Edward Snowden's revelations -- starting on June 5, 2013 -- gave the lie to Clapper's testimony, which Clapper then retracted on June 21 - coincidentally, Snowden's 30th birthday - when Clapper sent a letter to the Senators to whom he had, well, lied. Clapper admitted his "response was clearly erroneous - for which I apologize." (On the chance you are wondering what became of Clapper, he is still DNI.)

I would guess that Clapper's confession may have come as a shock to then ex-Secretary Clinton, as she became aware that her own emails might be among the trillions of communications that NSA was vacuuming up. Nevertheless, she found Snowden's truth-telling a safer target for her fury than Clapper's dishonesty and NSA's dragnet.

In April 2014, Clinton suggested that Snowden had helped terrorists by giving "all kinds of information, not only to big countries, but to networks and terrorist groups and the like." Clinton was particularly hard on Snowden for going to China (Hong Kong) and Russia to escape a vengeful prosecution by the U.S. government.

Clinton even explained what extraordinary lengths she and her people went to in safeguarding government secrets: "When I would go to China or would go to Russia, we would leave all my electronic equipment on the plane with the batteries out, because ... they're trying to find out not just about what we do in our government, they're ... going after the personal emails of people who worked in the State Department." Yes, she said that. (emphasis added)

Hoisted on Her Own Petard

Alas, nearly a year later, in March 2015, it became known that during her tenure as Secretary of State she had not been as diligent as she led the American people to believe. She had used a private server for official communications, rather than the usual official State Department email accounts maintained on federal servers. Thousands of those emails would retroactively be marked classified - some at the TOP SECRET/Codeword level - by the department.

During an interview last September, Snowden was asked to respond to the revelations about highly classified material showing up on Clinton's personal server: "When the unclassified systems of the United States government, which has a full-time information security staff, regularly gets hacked, the idea that someone keeping a private server in the renovated bathroom of a server farm in Colorado is more secure is completely ridiculous."

Asked if Clinton "intentionally endangered US international security by being so careless with her email," Snowden said it was not his place to say. Nor, it would seem, is it President Barack Obama's place to say, especially considering that the FBI is actively investigating Clinton's security breach. But Obama has said it anyway.

"She would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy," the President said on April 10. In the same interview, Obama told Chris Wallace, "I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI - not just in this case, but in any case. Full stop. Period."

But, although a former professor of Constitutional law, the President sports a checkered history when it comes to prejudicing investigations and even trials, conducted by those ultimately reporting to him. For example, more than two years before Bradley (Chelsea) Manning was brought to trial, the President stated publicly: "We are a nation of laws. We don't let individuals make decisions about how the law operates. He [Bradley Manning] broke the law!"

Not surprisingly, the ensuing court martial found Manning guilty, just as the Commander in Chief had predicted. Though Manning's purpose in disclosing mostly low-level classified information was to alert the American public about war crimes and other abuses by the U.S. government, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

On March 9, when presidential candidate Clinton was asked, impertinently during a debate, whether she would withdraw from the race if she were indicted for her cavalier handling of government secrets, she offered her own certain prediction: "Oh, for goodness sake! It's not going to happen. I'm not even answering that question."

Prosecutorial Double Standards

Merited or not, there is, sadly, some precedent for Clinton's supreme confidence. Retired General and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus, after all, lied to the FBI (a felony for "lesser" folks) about giving his mistress/biographer highly classified information and got off with a slap on the wrist, a misdemeanor fine and probation, no jail time - a deal that Obama's first Attorney General Eric Holder did on his way out the door.

We are likely to learn shortly whether Attorney General Loretta Lynch is as malleable as Holder or whether she will allow FBI Director James Comey, who held his nose in letting Petraeus cop a plea, to conduct an unfettered investigation this time - or simply whether Comey will be compelled to enforce Clinton's assurance that "it's not going to happen."

Last week, Fox News TV legal commentator Andrew Napolitano said the FBI is in the final stages of its investigation into Clinton and her private email server. His sources tell him that "the evidence of her guilt is overwhelming," and that the FBI has enough evidence to indict and convict.

Whether Napolitano has it right or not, it seems likely that Clinton is reading President Obama correctly - no profile in courage is he. Nor is Obama likely to kill the political fortunes of the now presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Yet, if he orders Lynch and Comey not to hold Hillary Clinton accountable for what - in my opinion and that of most other veteran intelligence officials whom I've consulted - amounts to at least criminal negligence, another noxious precedent will be set.

Knowing Too Much

This time, however, the equities and interests of the powerful, secretive NSA, as well as the FBI and Justice, are deeply involved. And by now all of them know "where the bodies are buried," as the smart folks inside the Beltway like to say. So the question becomes would a future President Hillary Clinton have total freedom of maneuver if she were beholden to those all well aware of her past infractions and the harm they have done to this country.

One very important, though as yet unmentioned, question is whether security lapses involving Clinton and her emails contributed to what Clinton has deemed her worst moment as Secretary of State, the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. personnel at the lightly guarded U.S. "mission" (a very small, idiosyncratic, consulate-type complex not performing any consular affairs) in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

Somehow the terrorists who mounted the assault were aware of the absence of meaningful security at the facility, though obviously there were other means for them to have made that determination, including the State Department's reliance on unreliable local militias who might well have shared that inside information with the attackers.

However, if there is any indication that Clinton's belatedly classified emails contained information about internal State Department discussions regarding the consulate's security shortcomings, questions may be raised about whether that information was somehow compromised by a foreign intelligence agency and shared with the attackers.

We know that State Department bureaucrats under Secretary Clinton overruled repeated requests for additional security in Benghazi. We also know that Clinton disregarded NSA's repeated warnings against the use of unencrypted communications. One of NSA's core missions, after all, is to create and maintain secure communications for military, diplomatic, and other government users.

Clinton's flouting of the rules, in NSA's face, would have created additional incentive for NSA to keep an especially close watch on her emails and telephone calls. The NSA also might know whether some intelligence service successfully hacked into Clinton's server, but there's no reason to think that the NSA would share that sort of information with the FBI, given the NSA's history of not sharing its data with other federal agencies even when doing so makes sense.

The NSA arrogates to itself the prerogative of deciding what information to keep within NSA walls and what to share with the other intelligence and law enforcement agencies like the FBI. (One bitter consequence of this jealously guarded parochialism was the NSA's failure to share very precise information that could have thwarted the attacks of 9/11, as former NSA insiders have revealed.)

It is altogether likely that Gen. Keith Alexander, head of NSA from 2005 to 2014, neglected to tell the Secretary of State of NSA's "collect it all" dragnet collection that included the emails and telephone calls of Americans - including Clinton's. This need not have been simply the result of Alexander's pique at her disdain for communications security requirements, but rather mostly a consequence of NSA's modus operandi.

With the mindset at NSA, one could readily argue that the Secretary of State - and perhaps the President himself - had no "need-to-know." And, needless to say, the fewer briefed on the NSA's flagrant disregard for Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures the better.

So, if there is something incriminating - or at least politically damaging - in Clinton's emails, it's a safe bet that at least the NSA and maybe the FBI, as well, knows. And that could make life difficult for a Clinton-45 presidency. Inside the Beltway, we don't say the word "blackmail," but the potential will be there. The whole thing needs to be cleaned up now before the choices for the next President are locked in.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as a CIA analyst for 27 years, during which he prepared and briefed the morning President's Daily Brief for Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan.

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 10, 2016, 11:21:19 PM5/10/16

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:
> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
>
>
>
>
> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"

Snowden interview: Why the media isn’t doing its job
By Emily Bell MAY 10, 2016
http://www.cjr.org/q_and_a/snowden.php

THE TOW CENTER for Digital Journalism’s Emily Bell spoke to Edward Snowden over a secure channel about his experiences working with journalists and his perspective on the shifting media world. This is an excerpt of that conversation, conducted in December 2015. It will appear in a forthcoming book: Journalism After Snowden: The Future of the Free Press in the Surveillance State, which will be released by Columbia University Press in 2016.

-----------------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YafZkjiMpjU

thinbl...@gmail.com

unread,

May 13, 2016, 10:12:25 PM5/13/16

to

On Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:04:50 PM UTC-4, thinbluemime wrote:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/c7g_VkYQzZQ/LSCqGpalvHIJ

> 2013-06-07
> Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w

> 1997-03-29
> "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a lengthy
> conversation that day. He told her that he suspected that a foreign
> embassy was tapping his telephones"

New emails released by a conservative watchdog group on Thursday appear to show former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directing a top aide to call her via an unsecured phone line when technical troubles prevented a secure phone conversation.

“I give up. Call me on my home [number],” Clinton told then-chief of staff Cheryl Mills in a February 2009 email after more than an hour of trouble trying to communicate via a secure line.

“I just spoke to ops and called you reg line — we have to wait until we see each other b/c [the] technology is not working,” Mills said in another email sent at almost exactly the same time.

“Pls try again,” responded Clinton, a few moments later.

It’s unclear whether the two did connect or if they moderated any discussion they may have had to avoid sensitive topics while on an unsecure landline.

But the episode is likely to cause concern among critics of Clinton, who have previously accused her of resorting to unsecure forms of communication out of convenience, potentially jeopardizing sensitive information.

Clinton abandoned secure line to use home phone, new email shows
Julian Hattem - 05/12/16
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/279764-email-clinton-abandoned-secure-line-to-use-home-phone
http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/JW-v.-State-Huma-production-7-00684-pg-100-232-9752-59.pdf

--------------------------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StKVS0eI85I

Re: Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls - Barack Obama

The Starmaker

Larry Anderson

thinbluemime2

The Starmaker

thinbluemime2

thinbluemime2

thinbl...@gmail.com

Bill Steele

thinbluemime2

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

Bill Steele

thinbluemime2

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbluemime2

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbluemime2

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

Bill Steele

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

Bill Steele

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

Shadow

thinbluemime

thinbluemime

thinbluemime

thinbluemime

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

Barb May

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

The Starmaker

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbluemime

Bill Steele

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

thinbl...@gmail.com

BTR1701

trotsky

BTR1701

thinbl...@gmail.com

BTR1701

thinbl...@gmail.com

trotsky

trotsky

BTR1701

BTR1701

trotsky

trotsky

trotsky

BTR1701

BTR1701

suzeeq

thinbl...@gmail.com

trotsky

trotsky

trotsky

BTR1701

trotsky

BTR1701