The Verizon scandal and NSA's PRISM surveillance program

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Second Summer

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Verizon scandal:
The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.
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Full article: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily (The Guardian, 6. June 2013)

The PRISM program:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.

The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.
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Full article: Documents: U.S. mining data from 9 leading Internet firms; companies deny knowledge (The Washington Post, 6. June 2013)

They're supposedly collecting data directly from the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple. You're still safe here on Veggie Views I think, though I'm slightly concerned about the fact that our server host is a US company. The physical server is located in the UK though, so not sure if that helps.
 
I think people are prematurely concerned about the gov't data mining from Google, Yahoo, etc.

First, the data is collected anonymously, and they apply some sort of algorithm to identify likely terrorist. They only associate names with the data if they have reasonable cause to believe you're a threat. It's unlikely that the vegan receipe you posted to FB will result in the NSA knocking down your door.

Also, based on the advertising I've been getting lately, Google thinks I'm a Spanish speaking Evangelical Christian unmarried Latino female who likes to watch reality shows.

I can assure you, that that is an erronous profile of me. If that's the best Google can do for the gov't, I'm not really worried.:p
 
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I can't see how this is not a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to.the US Constitution.

IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
 
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In the process—and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration—the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it’s all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
 
ledboots said:
I can't see how this is not a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to.the US Constitution.

IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
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But I think the key here is that the search is anonymous. Names are only associated with the data if there is reasonable cause to believe that there is a threat.

Part of my job is to audit workers comp claims for financial irregularities. All I see is a claim number, dollar amounts and some iternal coding. I have no access to SS# or patient names. If iIfind a financial irregularity, I bring the claim number to the group who holds the PII, and they take it futher. I believe it's similar to how the NSA handles data. Except they deal with a lot more raw data.
 
ledboots said:
In the process—and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration—the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it’s all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
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When people start getting arrested for speaking their minds on politics, I'll be worried. But I honestly don't believe that will happen.
 
What I'm seeing in the reaction to all of this is that of blatant hypocrisy on the right. When the Patriot Act was established, and spying on American citizens during the Bush administration, the left was critical, and for good reason, and everyone on the right was going "this is to fight terrorism and if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to hide and nothing to worry about". But since it's continued during the administration of the right wing's most hated president, all of a sudden it's a major scandal. My response: Where were you when all of this was being established? Why all of a sudden it's an outrage NOW? They've been spying on Americans since before Obama became president, but Commie Pinko Socialist Muslim Evil Antichrist Obama is suddenly to blame for all of this? :shrug:
 
As public and private conversations become ever more digital, I suppose this kind of thing was bound to happen at some point. All this data just lying around in server rooms across the globe, just waiting to be mined by government security agencies.

The possibilities are endless, of course, and the value of this data can hardly be overstated.

What can we, as citizens of the Internet, do to protect our data?
 
I'm not sure we can do anything. We are at the mercy of those who provide the internet to us. If we want to protect our data, just stop using the internet. Use two tin cans tied to each other with a string to make calls. Write everything down with pencil and paper and a typewriter, just like in ye olden days. You get the idea. :shrug:
 
Is this ok too? Amendment 1?

"The era of Big Data applies to journalists too. As they pursue stories they leave digital tracks (what Gary Kovacs evocatively calls “bread crumbs in the digital forest“) in the broad domain of cyberspace. Journalists, like everyone else, make phone calls, send emails, and travel in cars that may have GPS trackers on board (voluntarily with On Star, say). They download files with meta-data that can be analyzed. They have bank records reflecting credit card payments for cab rides. Etc. In short, his thesis (which as I say resonates) is that the increasing capacity of data analytics and the pervasiveness of data availability make it likely that a journalist can be tracked quite readily through his digital trail — and that in doing so, his source might be identified even without the need to subpoena his notes.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregory...new-york-times-sources-in-leak-investigation/
 
beancounter said:
When people start getting arrested for speaking their minds on politics, I'll be worried. But I honestly don't believe that will happen.
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But then it would be way too late to do anything, that is the point. Our congress passed a law in 06 or 07 that allows the government to spy on innocent US citizens without cause, and the private companies are forced to do this, and forced to keep it a secret from the people.
This jackboot on the throat of the American people doesn't bother anyone? Until, what, they are knocking on your door? The people in power will not always agree with you; they won't always be democrats or progressives, or whoever you like. Want to be targeted for being an animal activist, a communist, a feminist blogger? Just wait till a conservative starts mining your data. It is already illegal in some places to photograph factory farms and put the data up on the internet. Want the government to know you are doing it?

I guess I am just amazed that in my half century of life, Americans suddenly willingly give up their rights under the constitution without a blink. The constitut ion is the only thing standing between us and tyranny. It always has been.
 
That sick feeling in my stomach just got worse.
sick.gif
 
ledboots said:
But then it would be way too late to do anything, that is the point. Our congress passed a law in 06 or 07 that allows the government to spy on innocent US citizens without cause, and the private companies are forced to do this, and forced to keep it a secret from the people.
This jackboot on the throat of the American people doesn't bother anyone? Until, what, they are knocking on your door? The people in power will not always agree with you; they won't always be democrats or progressives, or whoever you like. Want to be targeted for being an animal activist, a communist, a feminist blogger? Just wait till a conservative starts mining your data. It is already illegal in some places to photograph factory farms and put the data up on the internet. Want the government to know you are doing it?

I guess I am just amazed that in my half century of life, Americans suddenly willingly give up their rights under the constitution without a blink. The constitut ion is the only thing standing between us and tyranny. It always has been.
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Well, like I've said a couple times, they are collecting meta data. That's data without content or names. So, they won't know what's being said.
 
beancounter said:
Well, like I've said a couple times, they are collecting meta data. That's data without content or names. So, they won't know what's being said.
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It can give lots more information than you may tell Aunt Tilly in an e-mail.

" So what exactly is metadata? Simply, if the “data” of a communication is the content of an email or phone call, this is data about the data – the identities of the sender and recipient, and the time, date, duration and location of a communication. This information can be extraordinarily sensitive. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study a few years back found that reviewing people’s social networking contacts alone was sufficient to determine their sexual orientation.

Consider, metadata from email communications was sufficient to identify the mistress of then-CIA Director David Petraeus and then drive him out of office.The “who,” “when” and “how frequently” of communications are often more revealing than what is said or written. Calls between a reporter and a government whistleblower, for example, may reveal a relationship that can be incriminating all on its own.

Repeated calls to Alcoholics Anonymous, hotlines for gay teens, abortion clinics or a gambling bookie may tell you all you need to know about a person’s problems. If a politician were revealed to have repeatedly called a phone sex hotline after 2:00 a.m., no one would need to know what was said on the call before drawing conclusions. In addition sophisticated data-mining technologies have compounded the privacy implications by allowing the government to analyze terabytes of metadata and reveal far more details about a person’s life than ever before." http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/06/06/why-the-government-wants-your-metadata/
 
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Peeps in the UK, watch out for this similar legislation coming your way. You still have time to stop it. http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22673156

And this
Despite President Obama’s reassurance today that there is strict oversight of the government’s data collecting activities, the federal court meant to provide a check against such espionage overreach hasn’t denied a single request in almost four years — and rarely rebuffs intelligence agencies’ desires to conduct electronic or physical surveillance — records reveal.

Defending the National Security Agency’s massive intelligence gathering operation on U.S. soil today, President Obama said the courts are an important “safeguard.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/07/despite_obamas_claim_fisa_court_rarely_much_of_a_check/
 
Google (and facebook's Zuckerberg) deny knowledge of prism and the kinds of broad orders verizon received.

First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.

Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html?m=1
 
An interview with the whistleblower who gave the documents to the press.

"Edward Snowden was interviewed over several days in Hong Kong by Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill.

Q: Why did you decide to become a whistleblower?

A: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under." http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why
 

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