Snowdon is a dummy

Brazil is considering ways to make local use of the internet less dependent on US-based services, following leaks about Washington's cyberspy operations.

The South American nation has suggested forcing internet firms to open data centres in Brazil, which would be used to store locally generated material.

It is also pursuing a plan to build a new internet cable.

The project would offer a way for data to bypass the US.BBC

It was thought that it had the NSA who spied via the largest Belgian phone company on smartphones opreratin in Belgium (EU, NATO!).

No,it were the Brits, the GCHQ:

It's all the same isn't it?

The UK intelligence agency has repeatedly been cited as a close partner of the NSA, allegedly tapping into fibre lines and acquiring intelligence through the PRISM programme that amalgamated data from Internet giants. GCHQ was also said to be sneaking vulnerabilities into commonly used encryption.

Yet MPs have stated it has not broken the law and congratulated GCHQ on its effective surveillance work.

[...]Prosecutors in Brussels said that initial investigations showed there had been an attack on Belgacom which could only have been possible with “significant financial and logistical backing”. When combined with the complexity of the techniques deployed, this indicated an “international state-sponsored espionage operation,” investigators said.

The Belgian authorities and politicians yesterday stopped short of pointing the finger directly at Britain but the country’s prime minister said the revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Snowden, published by Der Spiegel, were being “closely examined” and warned of unspecified retaliation if the attack was proven.

Elio di Rupo said: “If the hypothesis involving another country is confirmed, we will of course undertake the necessary steps.”

The allegations are the latest in a raft of damaging revelations flowing from Snowden’s document cache, which has exposed the depth of Anglo-American operations to gain access to vast quantities of email and telecommunications traffic across the globe.

The NSA has been implicated in operations ranging from interception of the emails and phone calls of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff to inserting “back doors” into computer hardware. But confirmation that Britain has been hacking the phone system of a close ally - and the host nation for key European Union institutions - would be also highly damaging.

he head of the watchdog responsible for scrutinising Britain's intelligence agencies has defended their spying techniques but admitted that the whistleblower Edward Snowden has raised "real issues" about safeguarding privacy in the 21st century.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind argued that the UK had an "effective and extensive system of independent oversight" of the three services – GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.

He also claimed people were "well aware British intelligence agencies have neither the time nor the remotest interest in the emails or telephone conversations of well over 99% of the population".

However, he appeared to concede that the laws governing the agencies may need to be refreshed in the light of revelations about the intelligence-gathering programmes run by GCHQ and its US counterpart, the National Security Agency.

"There are real issues that do arise out of the Snowden affair in Britain, as elsewhere," said Rifkind, who chairs the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC).

"Even if the intelligence agencies always act within the law it must be right for that law to be reviewed from time to time to see whether the safeguards are adequate. Sometimes they are not."

The ISC is currently reviewing the three laws governing Britain's spy services – the Intelligence Services Act, the Human Rights Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

His concession came amid further claims about GCHQ published in the German magazine Spiegel Online. In a piece published on Friday, it said GCHQ had been targeting the Belgian telecoms giant Belgacom, whose major customers include the European parliament and the European commission. The operation, codenamed "Socialist", had given GCHQ the ability to secretly hack into Belgacom for at least three years.
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RSA, the internet security firm, has warned customers not to use one of its own encryption algorithms after fears it can be unlocked by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

In an advisory note to its developer customers, RSA said that a default algorithm in one of its toolkits could contain a "back door" that would allow the NSA to decrypt encrypted data.

It "strongly recommends" switching to other random number generators.

RSA is reviewing all its products.

The advice comes in the wake of New York Times allegations that the NSA may have intentionally introduced a flaw into the algorithm - known as Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generation - and then tried to get it adopted as a security standard by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology.
BBC

So, does this mean we can stop calling him a traitor and start calling him a whistleblower?

The National Security Agency has sent a letter to its employees' family members, in an effort to "reassure" relatives about the agency's work.

The letter, signed by NSA director General Keith Alexander and deputy director John Inglis, is dated 13 September and is addressed to "NSA/CSS family". It characterises press reports of NSA overreaches as "sensationalised" and laments how stories published on documents leaked by Edward Snowden have seen the agency portrayed "as more of a rogue element than a national treasure".

"We are writing to you, our extended NSA/CSS family, in light of the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by a former contractor employee," says the letter, which was published on The Dissenter website on Friday. "We want to put the information you are reading and hearing about in the press into context and reassure you that this Agency and its workforce are deserving and appreciative of your support."
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"Some media outlets have sensationalized the leaks to the press in a way that has called into question our motives and wrongly cast doubt on the integrity and commitment of the extraordinary people who work here at NSA/CSS – your loved one(s)," the letter says. "It has been discouraging to see how our Agency frequently has been portrayed in the news as more of a rogue element than a national treasure. You've seen the dedication, skill and integrity that those employees bring to their job each and every workday, contributing to the accomplishments of the agency over the past 61 years."
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By the way JTT, it isent just the U S of A citizens who do this. Its the Canadian, English, Russian, Chinese, and most of the countries on earth who have brainwashed their citizens to this way of thinking.

wrongly cast doubt on the integrity and commitment of the extraordinary people who work here at NSA/CSS – your loved one(s)," the letter says. "It has been discouraging to see how our Agency frequently has been portrayed in the news as more of a rogue element than a national treasure.

I'm in the minority of those who believe Snowden was a traitor to his country because he betrayed confidential classified information.