Snowdon is a dummy

NSA spied on Indian embassy and UN mission, Edward Snowden files reveal
Documents released by US whistleblower show extent and aggression of datamining exercises targeting its diplomatic ally

The US National Security Agency may have accessed computers within the Indian embassy in Washington and mission at the United Nations in New York as part of a huge clandestine effort to mine electronic data held by its south Asian ally.

Documents released by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden also reveal the extent and aggressive nature of other NSA datamining exercises targeting India as recently as March of this year.

The latest revelations – published in the Hindu newspaper – came as Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, flew to Europe on his way to the US, where he will meet President Barack Obama.
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According to one document obtained by the Hindu, the US agency used the Prism programme to gather information on India's domestic politics and the country's strategic and commercial interests, specifically categories designated as nuclear, space and politics.

A further NSA document obtained by the Hindu suggests the agency selected the office of India's mission at the UN in New York and the country's Washington embassy as "location targets" where records of Internet traffic, emails, telephone and office conversations – and even official documents stored digitally – could potentially be accessed after programs had been clandestinely inserted into computers.

In March 2013, the NSA collected 6.3bn pieces of information from internet networks in India and 6.2bn pieces of information from the country's telephone networks during the same period, the Hindu said.
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I can't think what intelligence is for if it is not to spy on countries with nuclear weapons and with not all that stable a government.

Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, Richard Blumenthal and Rand Paul held a press conference today to discuss proposed legislation for reforming the NSA's surveillance programs. The bipartisan group assembled here is looking for actual reform, rather than the light touch-ups that have made up the majority of the administration's contributions to the national security discussion.

Their proposal breaks down roughly into five key points (hat tip tothe ACLU's Michelle Richardson for tweeting updates during this press conference).

The first proposal is to eliminate the Section 215 bulk records collections. As Wyden points out, no evidence exists that this data collection has led to the prevention of any terrorist attacks. Blumenthal adds to this point later in the press conference by referring to the oft-quoted "54 attacks prevented" statement as "bogus." Wyden also points out that the email records collection was already shut down (in 2011) for exactly this reason: no proven effectiveness. Wyden states that, with this bill, the dragnet collection of law-abiding citizens' information will be "outlawed."

Second, the bill will close the backdoor search loophole in the FISA Amendments Act that allows intelligence agencies to rifle through the communications of millions of Americans without a warrant. Originally, this was intended to search only foreign communications but that loophole (which had been closed in 2008) was reopened by a secret rule change in 2011. This would simply fix what should never have been there in the first place.

Third, Blumenthal's FISA Court Reform bill would be folded in, which would provide for a special advocate to act as an adversarial party in FISA court deliberations. As is pointed out later, this addition wouldn't unnecessarily burden the court. The advocate wouldn't be present for every warrant authorization but would sit in whenever major policy questions are being discussed in order to present the privacy and civil liberties side of the issue.

Fourth, the bill adds in Rand Paul's fix for the ongoing "standing" problem. As the system is set up now, it is extremely difficult to be granted standing to sue the government for civil liberties violations because of the secrecy surrounding the programs (although Snowden's leaks have greased the wheels a bit). Up until very recently, the courts have stated that if you can't prove the government is surveilling you, then you can't sue them for surveilling you. And since the government is in no hurry to hand out the data it's collected on American citizens, it's nearly impossible to obtain that proof. This would expand the ability of Americans to pursue the government in court for any ill effects suffered as a result of the government's surveillance activities.

Finally, the legislation will target the abuse of NSLs and strengthen the protections against reverse targeting.

This won't completely dismantle the NSA's programs but it will greatly reduce its domestic intelligence gathering. As Udall points out later in the conference, intelligence agencies will still be able to target terrorists and spies -- they just won't be able to sweep up non-targeted bulk collections of data on American citizens -- and they'll have to do better than simply claim the data might be "relevant."

As is now the new "normal," the backers of this bill are drawn from both parties. The NSA's overreach has managed to unite parties in a way the administration has been unable to do for nearly five years. As Wyden states, the narrow defeat of the NSA-defunding amendment proposed by Justin Amash was a "wakeup call" that demonstrated that many representatives were willing to cross party lines to protect civil liberties. That, in and of itself, is promising. But taking the first step as a bipartisan group should allow the bill's backers to draw support from both sides of the aisle, something that will greatly increase the chances of its success. Source

NSA chief built war-room replica of Star Trek ship with tax dollars
9/19/2013 8:00am by Becca Morn 39

It had already been reported by Glenn Greenwald (and numerous other outlets) that NSA chief General Keith Alexander had essentially built himself an homage replica of the Starship Enterprise bridge (the Next-Gen NCC-1701-D version, to be precise) as the command-and-control center for his “war room.” Yes, we’re talking the bridge from Star Trek.

Honestly, there’s a whole bucket of wrong in that first paragraph, starting with the fact we have a military officer running the NSA.

[READ ON, SEE YOUR MONEY WASTED AT,]

http://americablog.com/2013/09/nsa-outrage-star-trek-bridge.html

UK information commissioner says proposals to make it harder for spy agencies to get hold of material online are 'too dirigiste'

Britain has been accused of trying to impede data protection reforms that would make it more difficult for spy agencies to get hold of material online.

The European parliament is planning to vote on a new, unified data protection law for EU member states in the next few weeks, but activists fear Britain is deliberately obstructing the path to new legislation.

Talking at an international conference on data protection in Warsaw on Thursday, the UK information commissioner, Christopher Graham, said the first draft of the proposed regulation was "too dirigiste".
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However, the British view is that the disclosures have merely highlighted how differently European countries feel about online privacy. These divisions will make it harder to reach any compromise, the UK says.

"The Snowden revelations have showed us how important it is that we reach a compromise. There is a real need for an international regulatory framework," said Peter Schaar, Germany's federal commissioner for data protection and freedom of information. "For once, the Americans are as concerned about this as we are in Germany."

But a British source argued that "data protection law used to be a Rubik's cube" – and after Snowden it had become "a Rubik's cube on steroids".
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Britain's view is that by making regulation too tight and not leaving any room for discretion, controllers will be forced to fine even small transgressions, for example by inexperienced startups. This could lead to EU enforcers becoming swamped with paperwork.

"If you have an inflexible regulator, you overclaim and lose authority. Less is more," said Graham at the conference.

Other European countries are seen to favour a stricter punitive system, which would set out clear guidelines. Earlier this month in Brussels, the EU commission's director for fundamental rights and citizenship, Paul Nemitz, implicitly criticised Britain for "being bigoted and wanting changes".
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This could lead to EU enforcers becoming swamped with paperwork.

Op-ed in the NYT this morning by the Brazilian journalist Vanessa Barbara about how Brazilians are using humour to mock and subvert the NSA's surveillance schemes.

Soon after the very earliest reporting on Ed Snowden's leaked documents about PRISM, the folks from Datacoup put together the very amusing GETPRSM website, which looks very much like the announcement of a new social network, but (the joke is) it's really the NSA scooping up all our data and making the connections. It's pretty funny. Except, of course, when you find out that it's real. And, yes, that seems to be the latest revelation out of Ed Snowden's leaks. The NY Times has an article by James Risen and Laura Poitras (what a combo reporting team there!) detailing how the NSA has basically built its own "shadow" social network in which it tries to create a "social graph" of pretty much everyone that everyone knows, foreign or American, and it all happens (of course) without a warrant. And, note, this is relatively new:

The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said. Because of concerns about infringing on the privacy of American citizens, the computer analysis of such data had previously been permitted only for foreigners.

The agency can augment the communications data with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes, insurance information, Facebook profiles, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data, according to the documents. They do not indicate any restrictions on the use of such “enrichment” data, and several former senior Obama administration officials said the agency drew on it for both Americans and foreigners.

There were apparently two policy changes that allowed this to happen, and both occurred in the past three years. First, in November of 2010, the NSA was allowed to start looking at phone call and email logs of Americans to try to help figure out associations for "foreign intelligence purposes." Note that phrase. We'll come back to it. For years, the NSA had been barred from viewing any content on US persons, and the NSA, President Obama and others have continued to insist to this day that there are minimization procedures that prevent spying on Americans. Except, this latest revelation shows that, yet again, this isn't actually true. More