Thread: Why is the U.S. government seizing phone records of ALL verizon customers?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Is this kinda like how Obama “JOKED” about having the IRS audit his enemies?

Reporter: Intelligence Officials “Joke” About Making NSA Leaker Edward Snowden “Disappear.”

If that happens, some intelligence officials should disappear, too.

LMAO, this is some funny shit-

When asked "how he could be sure they were in the intelligence community" Celmons "noted that “one wore a white knit national counterterrorism center shirt.”"

Now where is that old FBI shirt I bought in Khao San all those years ago...

If I wear a fed T-shirt and carry a plastic badge it must mean I'm the real deal huh?

Should be careful using the word spook.
One time while sitting in a police bar, we were discussing an incident that had incurred the interest of MI5.
Things were said, like the spooks are involved etc. A person of darker complexion sitting on the far side of the bar, hearing the word reported the racist converstaion. Jim

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Soros mouthpiece Snopes

This false rumor has been throughly debunked and discredited yet you still feel compelled to push this lie. Pathetic.

Originally Posted by bsnub

This false rumor has been throughly debunked and discredited yet you still feel compelled to push this lie.

By Snopes.

Just like the Federal Reserve insisting they are good for America, right?

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by bsnub

This false rumor has been throughly debunked and discredited yet you still feel compelled to push this lie.

By Snopes.

Just like the Federal Reserve insisting they are good for America, right?

Tin foil hat fitting tightly today?

Originally Posted by jamescollister

Should be careful using the word spook.
One time while sitting in a police bar, we were discussing an incident that had incurred the interest of MI5.
Things were said, like the spooks are involved etc. A person of darker complexion sitting on the far side of the bar, hearing the word reported the racist converstaion. Jim

Bullshit. You got that from an Anthony Hopkins movie.

Originally Posted by Koojo

Originally Posted by jamescollister

Should be careful using the word spook.
One time while sitting in a police bar, we were discussing an incident that had incurred the interest of MI5.
Things were said, like the spooks are involved etc. A person of darker complexion sitting on the far side of the bar, hearing the word reported the racist converstaion. Jim

Bullshit. You got that from an Anthony Hopkins movie.

No I got it from the bar in Steelhouse lane police station in Birmingham, well over 20 years ago. Maybe Hopkins got it from there. Jim

Originally Posted by bsnub

Tin foil hat fitting tightly today?

I am going to make one, this afternoon. I have a suspicion that it is difficult to make them fit tightly. Maybe a bespoke one? However, if it does not block what ever it is they are supposed to block I will sue you.

i love the way that you can see the evil in the privately owned fed, but at the same time chuck mud at what you call tin foil hat brigade. Apparently your dislike of the private fed will make you a tin foil nutter as well, after all, if it is bad, it can only be some kind of conspiracy that allows it to continue n existence lol

^ Indeed. Anyway, I can hear a song playing by Alaina Morrisette

Obama administration to help Iranians beat government censors

By Joby Warrick,May 30, 2013
The Obama administration launched an offensive against Iranian censorship on Thursday, announcing measures intended to help ordinary Iranians acquire smartphones and computer software to thwart government eavesdroppers.

The key step, a “general license” issued by the Treasury Department, gives private companies permission to sell communications equipment to Iranians, overriding trade restrictions that had limited legitimate sales of phones and computer gear to the Islamic Republic.

U.S. officials said the action, coming two weeks before Iran’s presidential elections, would make it easier for ordinary Iranians to obtain unfiltered news or to talk freely to people outside the country.

“Freedom of speech, assembly and expression are universal human rights,” David S. Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in announcing the move. “We will use all the tools at our disposal . . . to help the Iranian people exercise these basic rights.”

Administration officials said the effort is a response to new Iranian efforts to stifle political expression and cut off access to foreign news. Four years after the disputed 2009 presidential election, Tehran is taking more aggressive steps to silence dissent and prevent government opponents from communicating with one another, a senior administration official said.

“We continue to be gravely concerned by human rights abuses by Iranian government officials, including in surveillance and in disruption of communication and access to the media,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity as one of the ground rules for a briefing to journalists on the measures.

By loosening restrictions on sales of communications equipment, Iranians will have improved access to smartphones, satellite phones, satellite dishes and computer software that blocks hackers and spyware, the official said.

The likely impact inside Iran is far from certain. While certain Western brands are officially banned from being sold inside Iran — Apple, for example, restricts sales of its products in Iran — most are widely available in Iranian stores, sometimes at lower prices compared with Western retailers.

A bigger challenge for many ordinary Iranians is obtaining anti-filtering software to access social media sites. In recent years, Iranian authorities have become better at defeating the most commonly available computer tools that allow Iranians to circumvent government controls on the Internet.

In a related move, administration officials announced new sanctions and visa restrictions on dozens of Iranian individuals and companies the White House has linked to alleged human rights abuses stemming from Iran’s 2009 crackdown on the country’s Green Revolution protests.

Jason Rezaian in Tehran contributed to this report.

What a hypocritical khunt Obama is.

"help ordinary Iranians acquire smartphones and computer software to thwart government eavesdroppers."



This, barely a week before his latest scandal. Not forgetting his voiced approval and support of SOPA.

(waits for the Opologists to turn up )

Just saw a two hour documentary about the leaked wikileaks diplomatic cables, and after that listened to a statement by that Snowden PRISM leak fellow, a very nice likeable young Man, a typical "almost perfect" product of our high morality well educated safe cosseted Democracy's. His view is very admirable but unfortunately unrealistic.

I don't necessarily agree with the methods of every intelligence operation or with every view/action expressed by Diplomats and indeed Government officials, but I acknowledged they are my majority Democratically elected officials. and I know the ways how we can try to change our representation by peaceful democratic means.
I also know that both clandestine Intelligence operations and the secret confidential efforts by diplomats are vitally important tools to protect our way of life.

But the nice young Snowden guy suffers from the usual delusional teenage like incredible naive Western left liberal wet dream fantasy views of the world, coupled with the almost fascist undemocratic ultra left wing anarchists and ultra right wing fanatics "I alone know best with my superior morality" syndrome!, where the end goal blindly justify the means no matter what a democratic majority have decided, and in accordance with the Democratic rules of the road, necessary for peaceful meaningful coexistence.

It all sounds so very nice and fair - we should not eavesdrop secretly, we should be open and honest in all our dealings for the betterment of all mankind etc. etc.

It however has a fatal flaw, it forgets the reality we live in in this world, it forgets that true democratic advanced Nations are the minority, and to have achieved those high ideals and continue beyond, we have had too and continue to have to vigorously defend and protect those Democracy's

But in today's world doing what those naive idealists wants, equates to a boxer going into the ring with both hands tied behind his back against a deranged psychopath opponent, because someone believing themselves to be better persons have told him it would be wrong to defend himself since he is already the champion, and downright immoral to fight back against an obviously deranged person.

Those nice persons seem to be oblivious of the fact that he will lose, not only the championship, but he will be hurt badly in the process, and ultimately a deranged psychopath with no regrets of the method, no morality, no compassion and no conscience will be - also their new king of the mountain.

The players the Western democracy's is up against like the Mafia State Russia, the Chinese Socialist dictatorship, religious Dictatorships and banana republic Dictators, have no scruples about human rights abuses, clandestine intelligence operations, theft of intellectual property, undermining opponents economy, pollution, inhuman workforce conditions, murders, torture or unlawful imprisonment and disappearances, and absolutely no problems with causing untold suffering in other places or indeed in their own backyard if they think it serves their own narrow interests.

We are already loosing the fight specifically in an economic and popularity/understanding sense, we have open borders, open worldwide communications, many of our undemocratic adversaries have not, we have a certain openness in Government and Business, they have not, we have human rights laws we largely follow, they abuse those to get what they want, we are in effect easy open naive stupid targets, and to the glee and great amusement of our much more cold evil and cynical adversaries, we are also our own worst enemy's, with our own Liberals and Right wing nutters attacking ourselves rather than the evil non democratic Nations that force our hand, and are a direct threat to what our Democracy's has achieved so far.

We are in a "War" of Democracy contra - ideological, religious, money nepotism corruption and mafia/single nutter run dictatorships, and we do not have the luxury to decide what weapons is being used by our enemy's, and we are forced to respond or slowly decline loosing battle after battle.

It amazes me how agitated non Americans get over things like PRISM, many European Nations do the same and even cooperate and have much less safeguards when it comes to "the very very secret clandestine intelligence operations" even if their citizens refuse to believe that, and our enemy's certainly do all they can all the time.

The US constitution offers much more individual protection against Government abuse than most other constitutions, and I fear it is the little jealous anti America shoulder chip that blinds peoples minds and stops them from looking at their own backyard with equal gusto and indignation.

In any case there is much more important and dangerous things coming our way from undemocratic nations they should sink their teeth into than this PRISM bleep.

Got it of my chest aahhhh have a nice day

Originally Posted by larvidchr

But the nice young Snowden guy suffers from the usual delusional teenage like incredible naive Western left liberal wet dream fantasy views of the world, coupled with the almost fascist undemocratic ultra left wing anarchists and ultra right wing fanatics "I alone know best with my superior morality" syndrome!, where the end goal blindly justify the means no matter what a democratic majority have decided, and in accordance with the Democratic rules of the road, necessary for peaceful meaningful coexistence.

Hallmark of the left-liberal or what?

We see this thinking ad nasuem daily aboard here.

Excellent post, Larv!

^^And so the voice of the over-the-hill, never had a principle I wouldn't betray for a buck, moral coward who is envious of the young with courage.

Maturity... ain't it just great?

An interesting concept, but I have no bother with the intelligence community trawling my Facebook or Google data. It's really not that interesting in the big scheme of things, and I know they've been doing it for years.


And if you think they need access to private data to get information, you've obviously never heard of OSINT.

The scale of this operation is huge, and at it's core it would appear the system is already compromised. William Binney's 'leaks' are a lot more explosive than the current scandal, and he was a lot more senior and centrally placed than Edward Snowden-

Shady Companies With Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA

Army General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, is having a busy year — In January he dedicated the new $358 million CAPT Joseph J. Rochefort Building at NSA Hawaii, and in March he unveiled the 604,000-square-foot John Whitelaw Building at NSA Georgia..... Overseas, Menwith Hill, the NSA’s giant satellite listening post in Yorkshire, England that sports 33 giant dome-covered eavesdropping dishes, is also undergoing a multi-million-dollar expansion, with $68 million alone being spent on a generator plant to provide power for new supercomputers. And the number of people employed on the base, many of them employees of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, is due to increase from 1,800 to 2,500 in 2015, according to a study done in Britain. Closer to home, in May, Fort Meade will close its 27-hole golf course to make room for a massive $2 billion, 1.8-million-square-foot expansion of the NSA’s headquarters, including a cybercommand complex and a new supercomputer center expected to cost nearly $1 billion.
The climax, however, will be the opening next year of the NSA’s mammoth 1-million-square-foot, $2 billion Utah Data Center. The centerpiece in the agency’s decade-long building boom, it will be the “cloud”

.... In addition to constructing the Stellar Wind center, and then running the operation, secretive contractors with questionable histories and little oversight were also used to do the actual bugging of the entire U.S. telecommunications network.

According to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned by Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I first reported in my book The Shadow Factory in 2008. Verint did not return a call seeking comment, while Verizon said it does not comment on such matters.

At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004. Narus did not return a call seeking comment.

What is especially troubling is that both companies have had extensive ties to Israel, as well as links to that country’s intelligence service, a country with a long and aggressive history of spying on the U.S.

In fact, according to Binney, the advanced analytical and data mining software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level employee, apparently with close connections to the country. The employee, a technical director in the Operations Directorate, “who was a very strong supporter of Israel,” said Binney, “gave, unbeknownst to us, he gave the software that we had, doing these fast rates, to the Israelis.”



Full article- Shady Companies With Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA | Threat Level | Wired.com

Enjoying Fox NEWS having a conundrum over the reporting of this. They want to yell the lie that this is good for American security,while worrying that the FOX staff are being spied on.

Predictably, William Binney has not gone unnoticed by the powers that be-


After he left the NSA in 2001, Binney was one of several people investigated as part of an inquiry into the 2005 New York Times exposé[9][10] on the agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program. Binney was cleared of wrongdoing after three interviews with FBI agents beginning in March 2007, but one morning in July 2007, a dozen agents armed with rifles appeared at his house, with one of them entering the bathroom where Binney was toweling off after a shower, pointing a gun at him. In that raid, the FBI confiscated a desktop computer, disks and personal and business records. The NSA revoked his security clearance, forcing him to close a business he ran with former colleagues, which cost him a reported $300,000 annual income. In 2012, Binney and his co-plaintiffs went to federal court to get the items back. Binney spent more than $7,000 on legal fees.[11]
During interviews on Democracy Now! in April and May 2012[12] with elaboration in July 2012 at 2600's hacker conference HOPE[2] and a couple weeks later at DEF CON,[13] Binney reported that he estimates that the NSA (particularly through the Stellar Wind project[14]) had intercepted 20 trillion communications "transactions" of Americans (such as phone calls, emails, and other forms of data but not including financial data). This includes most of the emails of US citizens. Binney discloses in sworn affidavit for Jewel v. NSA[15] that the agency was "purposefully violating the Constitution".[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...gence_official)


Bradley Manning- tyrannised by the authorities, mostly demonised by media
Julian Assange- demonised and holed up in an Embassy
William Binney- ignored by the media, 'stood over' by the authorities
Edward Snowden- on the lam, but mainly lauded by the media

Four leakers afforded very different levels of exposure by the media, and treatment by the powers that be.

Originally Posted by larvidchr

where the end goal blindly justify the means no matter what a democratic majority have decided

The questions the US citizenry should collectively of ask itself, and the government/ security state apparatus are contained therein.
- What have we said "Yes" to?
- Were we told what we were saying Yes to?
- Is the security apparatus acting within this mandate?
- Is the expanse (and expense) of this surveillance justified?

It certainly seems that, at minimum, the US population, via it's Congressional process, permitted a considerably higher level of surveillance and state secrecy than it had commonly realised. Does this Stellar wind/ PRISM surveillance exceed this mandate though? That is a a question worth asking, although I'm guessing not- except perhaps on fuzzy Constitutional grounds. I have to say, those that blithely reassured themselves that such surveillance would only be employed on stereotyped Al Qaeada type villains were naive in the extreme.

Originally Posted by wasabi

Enjoying Fox NEWS having a conundrum over the reporting of this.

Yes indeed, to 'rally to the flag' and take the traditional republican position, they would have to jump into bed with their bete noir. Must be excruciating for them.

Originally Posted by sabang

Who gets to decide when a scandal becomes a scandal, or indeed if it is a scandal at all?

Quite literally it appears it's only a Scandal if there's a Republican Administration in power.

“Hey, remember way back when wiretapping the Democratic Party’s headquarters was a huge scandal?”

Hypocrisy Abounds!

Candidate Obama debates President Obama on Government Surveillance - YouTube

On August 1, 2007, candidate Barack Obama sharply criticized then-President George W. Bush's government surveillance programs.


Recently, following the disclosures of Edward Snowden, President Barack Obama defended the NSA's top-secret PRISM program.

Obviously, there's something a little strange going on here. All is not as it appears with this Snowden guy:



"Have you noticed the similarity between Edward and the “executive” in the new Vonage ad? The crazy bum says "Open your ears, people! Your phone company is living in the stone age!" and the young exec responds, ok, dude, I’m listening."

And then young exec guy gives the bum a job as Vonage’s new “Chief Generosity Officer” and he declares: “We shall no longer let time or distance keep us from connecting”

Probably Nothing To It. All Coincidence No Doubt