Mass Surveillance: The Government’s Secret Tool To Convict By Violating Rights

A devious process, known as “parallel reconstruction,” lurks behind many cases being brought to trial in America, these days.  It’s actually a mass surveillance tool for the government and it violates the rights of every single person in the United States.

“Parallel reconstruction” is when law enforcement uses secret surveillance techniques to try to find evidence.  Then they try to seek it out again making it look like they didn’t violate rights by being intentionally vague about where they got their evidence, suggesting it wasn’t so nefarious.  Devices like Stingrays are often used by law enforcement in “parallel reconstruction.” Stingrays are devices that behave like fake cellphone towers, tricking phones into believing they’re pinging genuine towers nearby. By using the device, cops can determine a suspect’s precise location, outgoing and incoming calls, and even listen in on a call or see the content of a text message. Real cell phone towers just aren’t that accurate. And all of this is being done without consent or the knowledge of most of the American civilians.

Hemisphere, a massive telephone-call gathering operation revealed by The New York Times in 2013, is one of the most well-documented surveillance programs that government officials attempt to hide when they use parallel construction. The largely secret program provides police with access to a vast database containing call records going back to 1987. Billions of calls are added daily.

In order to create the program, the government forged a lucrative partnership with AT&T, which owns three-quarters of the US’s landline switches and much of its wireless infrastructure. Even if you change your number, Hemisphere’s sophisticated algorithms can connect you with you new line by examining calling patterns. The program also allows law enforcement to have temporary access to the location where you placed or received a call. –Wired

Joe Joseph from The Daily Sheeple says this is just a way for the government to hide from the scrutiny of the public.

A new report released by Human Rights Watch Tuesday, based in part on 95 relevant cases, indicates that law enforcement is using parallel construction regularly, though it’s impossible to calculate exactly how often. And it’s extremely difficult for defendants to discern when evidence has been obtained via the practice, according to the report.

“Really, it’s just a matter of how many times they can get away with it,” Joseph says of parallel construction. “And you also have to wonder: how many times has the use of Stingray actually tied their hands to the fact that they know a crime is being committed. They see it happening, they can’t do anything about it because it would tip their hand that they are using this thing.”

Joseph urges defense attornies to push for the means with which evidence was obtained.  Because more likely than not, these cases are “victimless crimes” and a defendant will be let off to protect the secret rights-violating programs used by law enforcement to convict.

As Media Obsesses on Oprah 2020, FISA Pushed to Let FBI Spy On You Without A Warrant

Justin Amash is countering this bill with legislation that would seek to end the government"s ongoing practice of warrantless searches and seizures.

DEEP STATE PLOY For Mass Surveillance: Facebook Recognition AI Will Use Your Own Biometrics Against You

Sometime this year, Facebook plans to unveil a new facial recognition technology across the site which uses artificial intelligence to scan uploaded photos to analyze and recognize faces based on images previously uploaded to the site. But this is nothing more than a surveillance technique.

According to Natural News, this sneaky surveillance technique will link users to the people they meet in real life all while tracking their whereabouts and social circle even further. And the real kicker? Facebook will roll out this AI deep state mass surveillance under the guise of “protecting your privacy.”

Facebook will roll the controversial plan out all in the name of “protecting your privacy.” Facebook promises to alert users when someone uploads a photo of them to Facebook. This feature supposedly helps users “detect when others might be attempting to use your image as their profile picture.” This feature is just a façade to invade user privacy, as Facebook gets permission to analyze your photos and track your connections and whereabouts. – Natural News

But there is a way to mostly opt out.  By default, users will already be giving Facebook permission to use the facial recognition AI if their tag suggestions setting is currently “on.” In order to opt out, the user must switch the tag suggestions setting to “none.”

But even more horrifying, is the fact that we should have known that this was coming. Two and a half years ago, ARS-Technica said that Facebook will eventually be able to recognize you – even when you are facing away.

Facebook researchers have unveiled new research that allows for faces to be more easily recognized based on other contextual information, such as hair style, clothing, and body shape.

The research, which was published on arXiv.org in January 2015, was presented at a conference in Boston earlier this month and first reported by New Scientist on Monday.

According to the researchers, the system, dubbed Pose Invariant PErson Recognition (PIPER), is accurate 83 percent of the time—far higher than the current state-of-the-art, which primarily requires clear, full frontal photos to work well. –ARS Technica

But even though a user didn’t give permission to have their face analyzed, the picture could theoretically be analyzed anyway because it contains the face of someone who had given Facebook permission to analyze their pixels. There’s no way Facebook can ensure users that their photos won’t be analyzed. In the end, there really will be no consent or privacy with this AI facial recognition rollout.

There is no such thing as privacy when using Facebook; or any social media or chat app.  All the data that’s shared openly by Facebook users (including pictures, connections, interests, comments, likes, and personal information) is readily compiled and analyzed by algorithms to map out and predict who you are, where you go, what you’ll buy, and much more.

Most Facebook users naively share information rather liberally, only to have their life turned over to surveillance systems, marketing algorithms, and artificial intelligence which is capable of analyzing the pixels in your photos, micromanaging your life interests and dislikes, and tracking your every move.

Senator Rand Paul To Filibuster "Long-Term" Surveillance Extension

Authored by Mike Shedlock via www.themaven.net/mishtalk,

A program that allows gov"t to collect data without a warrant expires this year. Paul opposes a "long-term" extension.

Senator Rand Paul is taking a partial stand against warrantless searches.

I will actively oppose and filibuster any long term extension of warrantless searches of American citizens

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 20, 2017

The Hill reports Rand Paul Threatens to Filibuster Long-Term Surveillance Extension.

The House Rules Committee on Tuesday released a draft bill that would reauthorize the program. Privacy-minded lawmakers have already criticized the bill as doing little to reform 702.

 

“This bill is an eleventh-hour attempt to sneak an unchecked warrantless surveillance program through Congress,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement Wednesday morning.

 

“The legislation posted late yesterday is a clear step backward for Americans’ rights. It does nothing to check the warrantless backdoor searches of Americans’ communications,” Wyden added.

 

“The bill also fails to codify the current prohibition on ‘abouts’ collection, in which communications entirely among innocent Americans can be swept up if they reference a target’s email address.”

 

There have been rumblings on Capitol Hill that lawmakers could try to include language in must-pass spending legislation to extend the controversial program. On Tuesday, Paul and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said they would oppose any spending bill that included a permanent reauthorization of the provision, according to the Washington Examiner.

Dear Senator Paul, I have a question:

Dear @RandPaul what does "long-term" have to do with anything. Something is either right or wrong. Why is short-term acceptable? https://t.co/wanpkKyZCb

— Mike Mish Shedlock (@MishGEA) December 20, 2017

 

The Deep State"s Christmas Present To America: Surveillance That Never Ends

Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

Just in time for Christmas, the Deep State wants to give America the gift that keeps on giving: never-ending mass surveillance.

I’m not referring to the kind of surveillance carried out by that all-knowing and all-seeing Jolly Old St. Nick and his informant the Elf on the Shelf (although, to be fair, they have helped to acclimate us to a world in which we’re always being watched and judged by higher authorities).

No, this particular bit of Yuletide gift-giving comes courtesy of the Deep State (a.k.a. the Surveillance State, Police State, Shadow Government and black-ops spy agencies).

If this power-hungry cabal gets its way, the government’s power to spy on its citizens will soon be all-encompassing and permanent.

As it now stands, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—the legal basis for two of the National Security Agency’s largest mass surveillance programs, “PRISM” and “Upstream”—is set to expire at the end of 2017.

“PRISM” lets the NSA access emails, video chats, instant messages, and other content sent via Facebook, Google, Apple and others. “Upstream” lets the NSA worm its way into the internet backbone—the cables and switches owned by private corporations like AT&T that make the internet into a global network—and scan traffic for the communications of tens of thousands of individuals labeled “targets.”

Section 702 has been used as an end-run around the Constitution to allow the government to collect the actual content of Americans’ emails, phone calls, text messages and other electronic communication without a warrant.

Under Section 702, the government collects and analyzes over 250 million internet communications every year. There are estimates that at least half of these contain information about U.S. residents, many of whom have done nothing wrong. This information is then shared with law enforcement and “routinely used for purposes unrelated to national security.”

Mind you, Section 702 gives the government access to the very content of your conversations (phone calls, text messages, video chats), your photographs, your emails.

So beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing. Privacy, as we have known it, is dead.

For all intents and purposes, we now have a fourth branch of government.

This fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.

The government’s “technotyranny” surveillance apparatus has become so entrenched and entangled with its police state apparatus that it’s hard to know anymore where law enforcement ends and surveillance begins.

The short answer: they have become one and the same entity.

The police state has passed the baton to the surveillance state.

This hasn’t fazed President Trump who, much like his predecessors, has thus far marched in lockstep with the dictates of the police state.

For months, the Trump Administration has been actively lobbying Congress to reauthorize Section 702 in its entirety. Now, according to The Intercept, Trump is actively considering a proposal to establish his own global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies and answer directly to the White House.

If approved, this would be yet another secret government agency carrying out secret surveillance and counterintelligence, funded by a secret black ops budget that by its very nature does away with transparency, bypasses accountability and completely eludes any form of constitutionality.

As if we weren’t being spied on enough already.

On any given day, the average American is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by the U.S. government’s vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops.

Talk about a system rife for abuse.

Ask the government why it’s carrying out this warrantless surveillance on American citizens, and you’ll get the same Orwellian answer the government has been trotting out since 9/11 to justify its assaults on our civil liberties: to keep America safe.

Yet warrantless mass surveillance by the government and its corporate cohorts hasn’t made America any safer. And it certainly isn’t helping to preserve our freedoms. Frankly, America will never be safe as long as the U.S. government is allowed to shred the Constitution.

Now the government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying program because they’re only looking to get the “bad” guys who are overseas.

Don’t believe it.

Warrantless mass surveillance of American citizens is wrong, un-American, and unconstitutional.

Clearly, the outlook for reforming the government’s unconstitutional surveillance programs does not look good.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, whenever the rights of the American people are pitted against the interests of the military/corporate/security complex, “we the people” lose. Unless Congress develops a conscience—or suddenly remembers that they owe their allegiance to the citizenry and not the corporate state—we’re about to lose big.

It’s time to let Section 702 expire or reform the law to ensure that millions and millions of Americans are not being victimized by a government that no longer respects its constitutional limits.

Mark my words: if Congress votes to make the NSA’s vast spying powers permanent, it will be yet another brick in the wall imprisoning us within an electronic concentration camp from which there is no escape.

“False Flags” Are So Common that U.S. Officials Commonly Discuss Them

Despite the attempt to marginalize the concept, "false flags" are so common that U.S. officials frequently use that phrase.

For example, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell:

Former Director for Transnational Threats on the U.S. National Security Council, Roger Cressey:

Former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Mudd:

Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, a high ranking Air Force official:

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (and Neocon warmonger) John Bolton:

The Washington Post notes that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved as an acceptable interrogation method

A technique known as "false flag," or deceiving a detainee into believing he is being interrogated by someone from another country.

NBC News points out:

In another document taken from the NSA by Snowden and obtained by NBC News, a JTRIG official said the unit’s mission included computer network attacks, disruption, “Active Covert Internet Operations,” and “Covert Technical Operations.” Among the methods listed in the document were jamming phones, computers and email accounts and masquerading as an enemy in a “false flag” operation. The same document said GCHQ was increasing its emphasis on using cyber tools to attack adversaries.

Washington’s Blog asked high-level NSA official Bill Binney* if he had heard of the term “false flags” when he was with the NSA. Binney responded:

Sure, they were under deception and manipulation programs. I was not involved in doing them; but, I did have to figure out some that the other side was doing. The other side called them “dezsinformatsiya” and Manipulatsiya.” The Brits have been doing this for several hundred years and are quite good at it.

Washington’s Blog asked Philip Giraldi - a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer with the CIA - the same question with regards to his experience with the CIA. Giraldi responded:

Yes, of course. We did false flags, and called them that, frequently in the operations directorate using false documentation to indicated that we were nationals of a country that was not the United States. Almost every CIA officer had false third country identification when operating overseas....

We followed up by asking:

Is it fair to say some of the false flags were for the purpose (i.e. premeditated) of blaming another country or group ... not only just in case caught?

Giraldi replied:

Sometimes if it were a covert action attempting to do just that but more often just for cover reasons to make one appear to not be American...

Robert David Steele – a 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer - said:

Most terrorists are false flag terrorists or are created by our own security services.

***

In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI.

Steele has repeatedly and publicly said (and also confirmed to Washington"s Blog) that he personally carried out a "false flag" attack while working as a U.S. intelligence officer.

Indeed, false flags are so common that there are official rules of engagement prohibiting false flags in naval, air and land warfare.

* William Binney is the highest-level NSA whistleblower in history. Binney is the NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information, who served as the senior technical director within the agency, who managed six thousand NSA employees, the 36-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency and the NSA’s best-ever analyst and code-breaker, who mapped out the Soviet command-and-control structure before anyone else knew how, and so predicted Soviet invasions before they happened (“in the 1970s, he decrypted the Soviet Union’s command system, which provided the US and its allies with real-time surveillance of all Soviet troop movements and Russian atomic weapons”).

Washington Stomps On Civil Liberty

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

The insouciant American electorate is so inattentive that it routinely elects enemies of civil liberty to represent the public in Congress. Last Wednesday Rep. Adam Schiff (D, CA), Rep. Trey Gowdy ( R, SC), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, CA), Sen. Mark Warner (D, VA), Rep. Jackie Speier (D, CA), Sen. Tom Cotton (R , AR ), and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D, TX) tried to intimidate executives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google into blocking all digital dissent to the anti-Trump/Russian line taken by the DNC and military/secrurity complex and to serve as spy agencies for the CIA.

Two of the above - Gowdy and Cotton - are Republicans who have aligned themselves with the attack on Russia and Republican President Trump. What unites the members of the two parties is that they want a police state. Jackie Speier demands to know from Google why Google hasn’t “shut down RT on YouTube.” Joaquin Castro wants messages linked to Russia turned over to the US government. Trey Gowdy wants false statements blocked, which would mean that the entire print and TV media in the US would be shut down along with Congress, John Brennan, Robert Mueller, and James Comey. Gowdy does not know that the First Amendment guarantees free speech and leaves it up to the public to decide what is true and what is false.

You tell me.

What kind of insouciant people are capable of electing representatives who do not respect the Bill of Rights?

Is a country whose government does not respect its own Constitution a democracy? Is such a country an exceptional, indispensable country?

Or is it a completely corrupt entity whose government no longer has the slightest allegience to the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution?

What is the quality of an electorate that sends those with a police state mentality to represent them in the government that has power over them?

Are we witnessing the destruction of democracy by the electorate?

Is the failure of the American people staring us in the face?

Are you amazed that it is the executives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google, and not the members of Congress who have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States, who point out to US Representatives and Senators that their demands for censorship and spying are unconstitutional?

What is the liberal/progressive/left, which believes that good resides in government and evil in the private sector, to make of this?

Is the hatred of dissent so great that nothing else is important?

Here is a report on Wednesday’s hearings by the House and Senate Intelligence (sic) committees on “extremist” views (via Global Research"s Andre Damon)...

Lawmakers Demand Tech Companies Censor Journalists and Conduct Mass Surveillance

Wednesday’s hearings by the House and Senate Intelligence committees on “extremist” political views served as the occasion for members of Congress to urge technology companies to flagrantly violate the US Constitution by censoring political speech, carrying out mass surveillance, and muzzling journalists in pursuit of the government’s geopolitical aims.

The hearings revolved around allegations, promoted ceaselessly in recent months by the intelligence agencies, leading figures within the Democratic Party, and newspapers such as the New York Times, that social opposition to the political establishment results from “fake news” promoted by Russia.

As Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff put it, “Russia” promoted “discord in the US by inflaming passions on a range of divisive issues” and sought to “mobilize real Americans to sign online petitions and join rallies and protests.”

The basic problem, however, as Schiff put it, is “not just foreign.” The algorithms used by Facebook and Twitter have the “consequence of widening divisions among our society.” Schiff complained:

“What ends up percolating to the top of our feeds tends to be things we were looking for,” as opposed to US government propaganda disseminated by the establishment media, which he referred to as “true information.”

Congressman Adam Schiff

In line with Schiff’s assessment, members of Congress who participated in the hearings spent the bulk of their time demanding that the companies censor such “fake” news, which they equated with the writings of exiled journalist Julian Assange and other political dissidents.

It is a testament to the decay of American democracy that it was left to the representatives of Facebook and Twitter, who have been broadly accused of violating users’ privacy for their own financial gain, to inform members of Congress about the ABC of constitutional law.

In an exchange that embodied the total contempt for freedom of speech that pervades the ruling elite, South Carolina Representative Trey Gowdy demanded that Facebook and Twitter block their users from making inaccurate statements about the current day of the week.

“Can I ‘say today is Thursday’,” the South Carolinian demanded. “What are you going to do with that?” Gowdy asked which constitutional amendment protects the right of people to make such statements, totally oblivious that almost all false statements are protected under the First Amendment.

Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel, fighting back a skeptical smile, replied:

“There is Supreme Court precedent on that…”

Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch

Gowdy, befuddled, demanded: “On which side?” Stretch answered:

“That it is, in most cases, protected.” He continued: “On Facebook, our job is not to decide whether content is true or false.”

Although the representatives of the technology companies largely played along with the narrative of “Russian meddling” in American politics, their resistance to the most flagrant censorship demanded by the government piqued the ire of the senators leading the witch-hunt.

“I don’t think you get it,” fumed Senator Dianne Feinstein, who said the past year had seen “a cataclysmic change” in American politics. This is “the beginning of cyber warfare,” she declared, and technology companies “have to really take a look at that and what role you play.”

Senator Mark Warner, for his part, complained that his accusations had been “frankly blown off by the leaderships of your companies and dismissed.”

Earlier this month, Google removed Russia Today (RT), a Russian-sponsored TV station and online news outlet that reports stories largely censored by the mainstream press, from its list of “preferred” channels on YouTube. Feinstein took issue with Google’s statement that it revoked RT’s status as a preferred channel for non-political reasons, and demanded to know why Google had not acted against RT earlier.

Google’s general counsel Kent Walker replied:

“We have carefully reviewed the content of RT to see that it complies with the policies that we have against hate speech, violence, etc. So far, we have not found violations.”

California Democratic representative Jackie Speier asserted that RT “seeks to influence politics and fuel discontent in the United States.” She asked:

“Why have you not shut down RT on YouTube? … It’s a propaganda machine, Mr. Walker, the intelligence community says it’s an arm of one of our adversaries.”

The clashes continued. Senator Tom Cotton demanded to know why Twitter refused to turn its platform over to the CIA in order to conduct mass surveillance. He asked:

“Do you see an equivalency between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Russian intelligence services?”

Sean Edgett, Twitter’s general counsel, replied:

“We’re not offering our service for surveillance to any government.”

Cotton likewise demanded that Twitter censor WikiLeaks’ editor Assange.

“The current director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, as well as this committee, has labeled WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence service who aids hostile foreign powers like the Kremlin,” he said. “Yet, to my knowledge, Twitter still allows him to operate uninhibited.”

Receiving a reply from Twitter general counsel Edgett that the company applies its policies “without bias,” Cotton retorted:

“Is it biased to side with America over our adversaries?”

In yet another incitement for technology companies to violate the Constitution, this time the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro asked:

“Are you also intending to turn over to the committee any kind of direct messages” on accounts suspected of being linked to Russia?

When Edgett pushed back that this would be possible only through legal channels, Castro responded:

“Certainly you’re not making the argument that a Russian account, a fakely created account, has some protection of privacy here.”

Edgett replied:

“Some users may end up being fake. Others will be real.”

The most surprising element of the hearings, however, was the extent to which Walker, Google’s general counsel, sought to separate Google’s search tools from the social networks operated by Facebook and Twitter when it comes to “fake news.”

In reference to a question regarding fake news, Walker interjected:

“I think there’s a distinction between say Google search, whose goal is to provide accurate, relevant, comprehensive information and social network concerns,” such as those related to Twitter and Facebook. “We think the heart and soul of the products is to try to provide useful and, to the extent we can, accurate information to users.”

This was in addition to his prepared testimony, where he noted:

“At Google News, we use fact check labels to spot fake news. At Google search, we have updated our quality guidelines and evaluations to help surface more authoritative content from the web.”

Based on the stated goal of fighting “fake news,” Google has implemented sweeping changes to its search algorithm that has led search traffic to 13 leading left-wing, progressive and anti-war sites to plunge 55 percent. Search traffic from Google to the World Socialist Web Site has fallen by 74 percent, and the site has been blocked from Google News.

Wednesday’s testimony makes clear the political motives behind Google’s actions. Rather than seeking, as it publicly claims, to provide “true” and “authentic” content, Google is acting as the proxy of the US government and its agencies to muzzle its critics and political opponents.

BREAKING: FBI Interviewed NYC Terrorist About His Ties to Terrorism BEFORE the Attack

The suspect in the NYC Terrorist Attack was reportedly interviewed by federal agents in 2015 under the suspicion that he had ties to terrorists.

What The Kennedy Assassination Records Reveal: Uncontrollable Incompetence

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Imagine Harvey Weinstein wielding a "top secret" stamp to block any exposure of the uncomfortable truth and you have the FBI, CIA and NSA.

One way to interpret the intelligence community"s reluctance to let all the Kennedy assassination archives become public is that the archives contain evidence of a "smoking gun": that is, evidence that the intelligence agencies of the United States of America were complicit in the assassination of the President.

I think the agencies fear something larger: exposure of their gross incompetence, their "cowboy" recklessness and their disavowal of elected-civilian control. Their fear of this exposure is based on one simple fact: nothing"s changed since 1963. They were unaccountable and incompetent then, and they remain unaccountable and incompetent now. The only difference is their funding has greatly increased.

We rarely get an insider"s glimpse of the intelligence community"s pettiness, hubris and incompetence. The Ministry of Propaganda is tasked with showing the NSA, CIA, FBI, et al. as super-competent, super-dedicated, and focused on defeating evil (which is always presented as unambiguously evil, i.e. anti-American.)

Although it"s 30 years old, I still recommend this account of a top MI5 (U.K.) officer, SpyCatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer.

I"ve read many books on the intelligence community, but few (if any) reveal the inter-agency rivalries and bad blood that (as far as I can tell) still exist beneath a formal veneer of co-operation. The CIA and FBI were always envious of the NSA"s SigInt (signal intelligence, i.e. eavesdropping), and so they"ve attempted to create their own versions, with laughably incompetent results in the case of the FBI"s "Russians stole the election" inquiry.

The CIA was also envious of the Pentagon"s Black Ops capabilities, so they created their own Black Ops division as well as SigInt capabilities. They also horned in on the FBI"s monopoly on domestic spying in the 1970s; they wanted it all, and chose to create their own versions of the competing agencies.

Unfortunately for the nation, their petty rivalries, general incompetence and penchant for political vendettas, coups, assassinations, patsies, fall-guys, and other "cowboy" recklessness is vividly revealed by the Kennedy archives.

Rather than protect the nation, these unaccountable and uncontrollable agencies have endangered the nation behind their Iron Curtain of secrecy, a convenient cloak which masks their hubris, incompetence, pettiness and complicity in cover-ups of the truth that cannot be revealed to the American public lest it embarrass the powerful.

Imagine Harvey Weinstein wielding a "top secret" stamp to block any exposure of the uncomfortable truth and you have the FBI, CIA and NSA. Forget the smoking gun, look at the complicity in the cover-ups of incompetence and gross errors of judgment: no conspiracy or tin-foil hat required.

*  *  *

If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Check out both of my new books, Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print) and Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print, $5.95 audiobook) For more, please visit the OTM essentials website.

Apple’s New “FaceID” Could Be A Powerful Mass Spying Tool

On Tuesday, Apple revealed their newest phone. The new line was anticipated by Apple users and is another cult favorite.  But many are rightly skeptical of the “FaceID” feature.

FaceID, is a tool that would use facial recognition to identify individuals and unlock their phones for use. Unsurprisingly, this has generated some major anxiety about mass spying and privacy concerns. Retailers already have a desire for facial recognition technology. They want to monitor consumers, and without legally binding terms and Apple could use FaceID to track consumer patterns at its stores or develop and sell data to others.

That seems minor on the surface, but the ramifications could be enormous. It’s also highly possible that police would be able to more easily unlock phones without consent by simply holding an individual’s phone up to his or her face, violating the rights of the person to privacy.

But FaceID should create fear about another form of government surveillance too. And this one is a rights violation of every person on earth: mass scans to identify individuals based on face profiles. Law enforcement is rapidly increasing their use of facial recognition; one in two American adults are already enrolled in a law enforcement facial recognition network, and at least one in four police departments has the capability to run face recognition searches. This could make Apple the target for a new mass surveillance order.

While Facebook has a powerful facial recognition system, it doesn’t maintain the operating systems that control the cameras on phones, tablets, and laptops that stare at us every day. Apple’s new system completely changes that. For the first time, a company will have a facial recognition system with millions of profiles, and the hardware to scan and identify faces throughout the world.

According to Wired, this is a system already ripe for government abuse. The government could issue an order to Apple with a set of targets and instructions to scan iPhones, iPads, and Macs to search for specific targets based on FaceID, and then Apple would provide the government with those targets’ location based on the GPS data of devices’ that receive a match. Apple has a good record of fighting for user privacy, but there’s only so much the company could do if its objections to an order are turned down by the courts. And the government is already looking into how this could benefit them, but are hiding behind the guise of “privacy.” On Wednesday Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) released a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, asking how the company will handle the technology’s security and privacy implications.

But this type of sleazy “Big Brother” activity by the government is not new.

Over the last decade the government has increasingly embraced this type of mass scan method. Edward Snowden’s disclosures revealed the existence of Upstream, a program under FISA Section 702 (set to expire in just a few months). With Upstream, the NSA scans all internet communications going into and out of the United States for surveillance targets’ emails, as well as IP addresses and what the agency has called cybersignatures. And last year Reuters revealed that Yahoo, in compliance with a government order, built custom software to scan hundreds of millions of email accounts for content that contained a digital signature used by surveillance targets. –Wired

Mass facial recognition scans are unconstitutional and a gross violation of human privacy rights. But that has yet to stop the overreaching government from its pursuit of an even more effective method of their goal of dystopian mass surveillance.

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Author: Mac Slavo
Views: Read by 222 people
Date: September 14th, 2017
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

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LAPD Prepares To Unleash Drones Amid Public Outcry

The LAPD first toyed with the idea of ramping up its public spying safety program with the introduction of drones back in May 2014.  At that time, the LAPD announced it had acquired two "unmanned aerial vehicles" as gifts from the Seattle Police Department, Draganflyer X6 aircraft to be exact, after a public outcry in Seattle grounded the controversial program.  Unfortunately, or perhaps not, LA"s drone efforts quickly met the same fate as Seattle"s.  Per the Los Angeles Times:

The LAPD’s dance with drones began in 2014, when the department received two Draganflyer X6 drones from police in Seattle — drones the Washington agency unloaded after heavy criticism from the public. Although the LAPD said it would deploy the drones for “narrow and prescribed uses,” civil liberties advocates questioned their use in even a limited fashion.

Less than a week after getting the drones, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said he would not fly the unmanned aircraft until the department had sought public feedback as well as approval from the Police Commission.

“I will not sacrifice public support for a piece of police equipment,” Beck said at the time.

The drones were then locked away in the office of the LAPD’s inspector general. Department officials said the move was a response to public perception and federal laws limiting use of the unmanned aircraft.

Now, some three years later, it seems that the LAPD is ready to give it"s mass public spying effort another try... 

On Tuesday, the LAPD will again wade into the heated debate, as department brass are slated to present details to the Police Commission about a possible pilot program for an “unmanned aerial system.”

The commission’s agenda said the pitch was for “limited tactical deployment” of a drone, but did not elaborate.

Earlier this year, L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell announced his agency’s plans to use a $10,000 drone to help deputies responding to arson scenes, suspected bombs and hostage situations. McDonnell said the drone would not be used in surveillance but could provide critical information from previously inaccessible vantage points.

But, while populations do tend to become more comfortable with technology over time, apparently 3 years hasn"t been enough time for the citizens of LA to decide they"re now willing to give up their civil liberties.

Before the meeting, roughly three dozen activists from various groups — including the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, Black Lives Matter and Los Angeles Community Action Network — stood outside the LAPD’s downtown headquarters, denouncing the use of drones by police.

The Police Commission should “completely reject LAPD’s latest attempt to revive its drone program,” said Hamid Khan, founder of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, an anti-surveillance group that frequently criticizes the LAPD.

”L.A. does not need further militarization by the LAPD,” said Paula Minor, an activist with Black Lives Matter.

Civil liberties advocates expressed concern over privacy as well as what they described as a lack of public input in the sheriff’s abrupt announcement. The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition staged a protest blasting the department’s use of drones.

Of course, as the LA Times notes, drones are already used by some 350 municipal agencies around the country...though we would be intrigued to know whether or not the public was asked for their opinion on those programs before they were deployed...

Drones have been hailed by law enforcement across the country as a crucial technology that can help find missing hikers or monitor armed suspects without jeopardizing the safety of officers. But efforts to adopt the unmanned aircraft have frequently drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates for whom the devices stir Orwellian visions of inappropriate — or illegal — surveillance or fears of military-grade, weaponized drones patrolling the skies.

Almost 350 public safety departments in the U.S. have acquired drones, nearly half of them last year, according to a study Gettinger’s center published earlier this year. Many of those drones are no more advanced than those used by hobbyists, he said.

Some agencies have adopted the technology without much public reaction. Still, Gettinger said, skeptics have expressed apprehension not just about how police use drones today, but how they might use the technology in the future.

“We’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “The systems are going to evolve, and that’s going to bring with them questions about how they’re going to be used.”

But we"re sure it"s fine, people in positions of power rarely abuse their power...

Rachel Maddow Caught In Latest Fake News Scandal; Proof Her "Forged NSA Document" Segment Was A Hoax

She thought she had it.  The smoking gun that would prove someone in Trump"s campaign colluded with the Russians to steal the 2016 election.  But, when a forged NSA document sent to Rachel Maddow turned out to be just more bad information from more anonymous sources, it left the crusading MSNBC host feeling a bit "triggered."  As such, she opened her show last night with the following segment:

“Somebody, for some reason, appears to be shopping a fairly convincing fake NSA document that purports to directly implicate somebody from the Trump campaign in working with the Russians in their attack in the election."

“This is news, because: why is someone shopping a forged document of this kind to news organizations covering the Trump-Russia affair?”

Not surprisingly, Maddow uses the discovery to imply that someone within the Trump administration is intentionally planting fake information in an attempt to discredit her show.  She goes on to imply that similar efforts may have caused the recent firing of 3 "journalists" at CNN who simply couldn"t be bothered with verifying the anonymous tip they received.

Here are more details of Maddow"s show from the Daily Caller:

On June 7, an unidentified person sent documents to an online tip line for Maddow’s show, she said.

That was two days after The Intercept published legitimate NSA documents that were stolen by Reality Winner, a contractor for the agency.

And that"s where Maddow"s faux-outrage breaks down. 

You see, if it"s clear that Maddow received her forgery after the intercept published their documents then there"s really no "there" there.  Pretty much anyone with an internet connection could have simply taken the Reality Winner documents from The Intercept website and used them create a forgery to send to Maddow. 

Of course, Maddow knew that her whole story was bullshit unless she could convince her viewers that the forgery she received was created before The Intercept published it for the world to see.  If she could prove that, then she could insist the forged document must have come from someone on the "inside."

So, she decided to get "technical" and take a look at the "metadata" on the document she received.  As it turns out, the "creation date" on the document she received was roughly 3.5 hours before The Intercept published their Reality Winner story.  See, it"s all laid out right here on this lovely timeline graphic.  Checkmate, Mr. Trump!

Except, not.  Ironically, by stretching the truth in an attempt to prove that her story was in any way relevant, Maddow unwittingly proved exactly the opposite. 

As The Intercept has subsequently pointed out, the "creation date" on the document received by Maddow (see the timeline above) perfectly matches, to the exact second, the "creation date" on The Intercept"s Reality Winner document. 

Why?  Because that is the exact time in which The Intercept created their document and published it to their cloud server. 

All of which simply proves that Maddow"s source didn"t have a sneak peak at the Reality Winner documents...they actually used The Intercept document as their source for creating their forgery. 

Now, we could be wrong here...but, if the Trump administration wanted to dupe Rachel Maddow we suspect they could have gotten their hands on clean copies of the Reality Winner docs without having to lift them from The Intercept"s website.

So, what seems more likely to have happened here is that Maddow"s staff could easily tell the "NSA document" was a forgery from the start and simply ignored it at first. Afterall, she received the document on June 7th and is just now deciding to talk about it a month later?  Unlikely. 

But, when 3 journalists from CNN lost their jobs for publishing fake news, Maddow saw an opportunity to launch a whole new narrative attacking the Trump administration by alleging that they"re planting fake intelligence reports with the media.  Never let a good crisis go to waste...as they say.

Edward Snowden summarized the situation the best in a series of tweets:

Maddow"s lawyerly defense of why her implication was wrong is disappointing. Such caution should come prior to raising alarm on national TV.

When the media"s credibility is under attack, rushing stories out before checking facts and contacting the subject is hard to comprehend.

That said, journalism is hard and mistakes happen. When they do, as in this Maddow case, apologies should be frank and unequivocal.

When we start getting economical with facts, we lose. This important story was mangled by needlessly injected an unsupportable conspiracy.

Each time the media gets a prominent story wrong right now, I wince. More than egg on a famous face, it risks a generation"s trust in news.

If our most famous journalists are so proud they can"t admit to what is now an obvious error, how can they hope to hold the public trust?

Most folks can"t read three different papers every day. If we don"t set the highest standard, many give up and say the truth is unknowable.

That is the twilight of an age.

When the media"s credibility is under attack, rushing stories out before checking facts and contacting the subject is hard to comprehend.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2017

When we start getting economical with facts, we lose. This important story was mangled by needlessly injected an unsupportable conspiracy.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2017

If our most famous journalists are so proud they can"t admit to what is now an obvious error, how can they hope to hold the public trust?

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2017

That is the twilight of an age.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 7, 2017

Still, we do feel badly for the liberal "journalists" of the world...all the embarrassing fake news stories of late means that they may have to actually start doing their jobs rather than just blindly running stories from "anonymous sources."

War, Prison, Spying – Celebrating ‘Freedom’ on the 4th of July is Now Purely Symbolic

Every year on July 4, Americans celebrate their “freedom” on Independence Day—the anniversary of the day the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and established the United States as an independent nation in 1776.

As Americans prepare to commemorate Independence Day in 2017—gathering together with friends and family to eat, drink and watch elaborate fireworks displays—they are blindly celebrating a false sense of freedom based on a list of liberties that are far from the current practices of the U.S. government.

Endless Taxes

When schoolchildren in the U.S. learn about the great American Revolution, they are taught about the important role taxes played in the decision to rebel against the British government. American colonists fought back against the unnecessary taxes and tariffs that seemed to increase by the year, and they took a stand against the heinous idea of “taxation without representation.”

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However, today the U.S. federal tax code is around 75,000 pages—so long that most of the politicians who have the authority to push for legal change to it, have never actually read it. In fact, the Washington Examiner reported in April 2016 that the current version of the federal tax code is more than 187 times longer than it was a century ago.

“Amazingly, in the first 26 years of the federal income tax, the tax code only grew from 400 to 504 pages. Even through President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the tax code was well under 1,000 pages. Changes during World War II made the length of the tax code balloon to 8,200 pages. Most of the growth in the tax code came in the past 30 years, growing from 26,300 pages in 1984 to nearly three times that length today.”

Mass Incarceration

When schoolchildren in the U.S. are taught about history, they are taught about the abolishment of slavery in the 1860s, followed by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. They are taught that Americans finally learned how to appreciate all people, regardless of race. However, they are not taught about the forms of modern day slavery, in which race and poverty play an important role.

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A study conducted by the Brennan Center of Justice at NYU School of Law in 2016 found that nearly 40 percent of the U.S. prison population—around 576,000 people—are behind bars with “no compelling public safety reason.” More than 25 percent of prisoners—364,000 people—are serving prison sentences for nonviolent offenses.

Mass Surveillance

The peaceful transition of power is known as one of the cornerstones of American policy, and issues such as mass surveillance appear to transcend party lines. From President Bush signing the Patriot Act, to President Obama signing the USA Freedom Act, Americans have seen an ongoing loss of privacy rights in the 21^st Century.

While President Trump has openly praised government surveillance, he wouldn’t have his current ability to spy on innocent Americans, if it wasn’t for the actions of his predecessors. Just days before he left office, Obama signed an executive order that gave the National Security Agency the authority to share the raw streams of the communications it intercepts from Americans directly with government agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. 

Endless War

When British colonists arrived on American soil, they acted as if they were the first to ever discover the land, and appeared to have very little regard for the Native American people who were already inhabitants. The only “war” that was waged was for a land the American colonists chose to claim as their own—in many ways, that practice is still carried out today.

The concept of endless war is one that has been passed from one administration to the next in the U.S., with each new president adding to and intensifying the current ongoing conflicts. Instead of pursuing a conflict because the opposing country directly attacked the U.S., the true strategy revolves around what the U.S. can stand to gain from the country’s natural resources, along with the factor of whether that country recently dropped the U.S. dollar.

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While Donald Trump ran on a policy of not invading other countries, his sentiment quickly changed once he became the lead puppet for the military industrial complex.

 As U.S. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” In 2017, the current status of the United States is one in which when it comes to the areas of taxes, war, and the police and surveillance state, the American public seems to have no regard for the police state they willingly submit to, all the while openly celebrating their “Freedom.”

Oliver Stone Tells Ron Paul: Edward Snowden Is The "Most American Of Patriots"

Director Oliver Stone, who’s recently released series “The Putin Interviews” stirred up controversy among liberals who accused him of being a Russian propagandist, appeared on the Liberty Report with former Texas Congressman Ron Paul to discuss the documentary, his views about former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and why the US’s aggressive approach to containing the purported threat posed by Russia has led to a breakdown in relations between the two powers.

Stone said he’s been “interested” in Russia since being raised as a conservative in New York City, claiming that his father instilled a “fear” of Communism and Russians in him at a young age. In the early 1980s, Stone visited the country for the first time as a screenwriter with the idea of interviewing several dissidents. He has returned several times since. In particular, Stone has become interested in the case of Snowden, whom he praised as “the most American of patriots.”

“I was interested in Russia – I went back into the 2000s. The Snowden story occupied me. And of course, it’s so ironic that he the most American of patriots is living in Moscow because he has to. It’s the only country in the world that would give him asylum -  in other words it’s the only country in the word that can deny the US what it wants which is Snowden.”

“[Putin] explained to me that Russians wanted an extradition treaty with the US for years, but nothing doing, because there are a lot of Russian criminals in America who stole money from Russia. He did nothing wrong in Russian terms so they gave him asylum - now its 3 years 5 years whatever its going to be. I wish Ed well I really do.”

Stone tried explaining Putin’s point of view regarding the breakdown in relations between the US and Russia that has occurred since the end of the George W Bush presidency, saying the US’s decision to install new ABM defenses have greatly unsettled Russians, who see their installation as an encroachment.

“We come around now to this period in 2017…for some reason an improving US-Russia relationship deteriorated completely. Mr. Putin in his interview goes into the ABM treaty, he goes into the expansion of NATO and the American support of terrorism in the caucuses while the Russians were helping them in Afghanistan.”

“That’s an important issue for them. Many American lives were saved. I think you talked about those three issues NATO, ABM, the support of terrorism.”

The ABM installations, in particular, are threatening a policy of “nuclear parity” that has existed since the Soviet Union, Stone said, adding that the notion that Russia is a threat to the US is “insanity,” given Russia"s weaker economy and less powerful military.

“ABM destroys the nuclear parity that existed. When Mr. Bush tore that up in 2001, that was a signal that the US wanted nuclear superiority, or a first strike option.”

Stone also shared a story about watching the movie “Dr. Strangelove” with Putin, who he said was greatly moved.

“I showed him the movie Dr. Strangelove…and he watched it very serious about it. He said this movie was very accurate of that time and it’s still accurate today.”

Circling back to the issue of nuclear deterrents, Stone said he’s worried that rising tensions around the world could trigger a “nuclear confrontation.”

“I’m saying I have reached that age when I am not really concerned about what happens to me but… it’s not just about the US, but about the whole planet and I feel a nuclear confrontation, an accident, could happen tomorrow. But you put ABMs in Poland and Romania - that’s a gigantic mistake.”

“An ABM can be converted overnight from a defensive missile to an offensive missile. They’re surrounded from the North the East and the West by US missiles and we don’t seem to realize it.”

Stone says he’s “scared for America,” explaining that many US citizens prefer to blindly accept media spin that’s favorable to the US establishment, without questioning it, or trying to understand Russia’s point of view.

“It’s a good thing I went through JFK when I was younger…there’s been a lot of controversy around my movies. I’m scared not for myself because I’m at that age, they can’t destroy me anymore, but I’m scared for America, I’m afraid they’ve lost their sense. I’m afraid there’s a lack of foresight and leadership.”

Stone denied allegations that he provided questions to Putin ahead of time, and said the four-part documentary is a great opportunity for Americans to learn more about Russia’s enigmatic leader.

“Over four hours you can listen to a man who’s been there 16 years talk about the balance of power. We live in this spin cycle like a laundry every day it’s a crisis and I think that’s the way we like it, it creates more money but this is not a view of the world.”

NSA-Linked Hackers Raise Price Of Monthly Subscription to $61,000 After Tuesday's Cyberattack

In the wake of Tuesday’s massive global ransomware attack, the hacker group called the Shadow Brokers is again trying to capitalize on its reputation as a source of leaked NSA hacking exploits, saying it will up the price of a subscription service launched earlier this month, while also introducing a new “premium” feature.

The group introduced a monthly subscription service following last month’s WannaCry attack, after initially trying to sell its entire cache of NSA-funded cyberweapons for a staggering one million bitcoin (worth $2.5 billion at current prices). Both WannaCry and Tuesday’s attack, which has been blamed on the “Goldeneye” strain of the “Petya” ransomware, were aided by exploits that the Shadowbrokers allegedly stole from an NSA special-ops crew called “the Equation Group.”

????? ????????? ????????? ????? ?? ???????? ?????, ?????, ??????? https://t.co/MjUifB6HYB pic.twitter.com/QdsW9Iw57h

— ?????????? ?????? (@ukrpravda_news) June 27, 2017

Now, the Shadowbrokers are marketing their wares not only at hackers, but at corporations who’d like to buy insurance against being hacked.

Here’s the Shadowbrokers, in their characteristic broken English, as reported by The Hill.

"Another global cyber attack is fitting end for first month of theshadowbrokers dump service. There is much theshadowbrokers can be saying about this but what is point and having not already being said? So to business! Time is still being left to make subscribe and getting June dump. Don’t be let company fall victim to next cyber attack, maybe losing big bonus or maybe price on stock options be going down after attack. June dump service is being great success for theshadowbrokers, many many subscribers, so in July theshadowbrokers is raising price," the ShadowBrokers wrote in an online message released early Wednesday.”

The Shadowbrokers launched its monthly subscription document leaks service this month at a price of $27,000 a month in digital currency. Their new release more than doubles the price to $61,000.  The group also announced a new premium service allowing customers to make requests for assistance or specific document releases.

The group has been active since August 2016, when it began leaking hacking tools that were allegedly developed by the NSA. It has also leaked documents appearing to show the NSA hacked a Middle Eastern banking services company to try and get at the company’s clients, according to the Hill.

One of the exploits released by the group back in April, known as EternalBlue, was instrumental in aiding last month’s WannaCry cyberattack. Both WannaCry and another NSA exploit were allegedly intrumental in Tuesday"s attack.

The group also publicly released a password to what Edward Snowden called the NSA’s “top-secret arsenal of digital weapons.” Back in April, the group released passwords to hacking tool binaries developed by the NSA in 2013 as a “protest” against President Donald Trump, whom they accused of betraying his base by launching a missile strike against a Syrian government airfield and for backing away from his commitment to combating globalism.  

The first reports of organizations being hit by Tuesday’s attack were from Russia and Ukraine, but the impact quickly spread westwards to computers in Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Britain. Companies affected included German pharmaceutical company Merck, Russia"s Rosneft and metals giant Evraz, Danish shipper Maersk, UK ad company WPP, and both the Ukrainian and Russian central banks.

Already, Ukrainian government officials are blaming the attack on a Russian entity – likely government-sponsored – claiming that the virus’s code was written in Russian, ignoring the fact that Russian firms were also attacked, and mirroring the laughable conclusion that the North Korean government was somehow responsible for the original WannaCry attack.

With two global attacks unfolding in the span of two months, it’s incredible that the public – not to mention investors – aren’t more worried. How long until these attacks become a weekly, or even daily, occurrence. And more importantly, how long until they begin to seriously disrupt the functioning of private infrastructure.

At least one former NSA employee chimed in with his two cents about the agency’s role in making these attacks possible.

How many times does @NSAGov"s development of digital weapons have to result in harm to civil infrastructure before there is accountability? https://t.co/VOu28Ce9ee

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) June 27, 2017

Nobody has been able to say for certain who or what the Shadowbrokers are. But at least one famed NSA whistleblower has a theory:

William Binney - who exposed the NSA"s pervasive surveillance of Americans long before Snowden confirmed it - said he and his colleagues are fairly certain the Shadowbrokers aren"t really a group of rogue actors, but rather an insider employee at NSA.

NSA Uses Trick to Spy On Americans

The government is spying on most Americans through our computers, phones, cars, buses, streetlights, at airports and on the street, via mobile scanners and drones, through our credit cards and smart meters, televisions, dolls, and in many other ways.

This week, ZDNet reported that the NSA uses a trick to get around the few flimsy American laws on spying … they shuttle internet traffic overseas so they can pretend they’re monitoring foreign communications:

A new analysis of documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden details a highly classified technique that allows the National Security Agency to “deliberately divert” US internet traffic, normally safeguarded by constitutional protections, overseas in order to conduct unrestrained data collection on Americans.

According to the new analysis, the NSA has clandestine means of “diverting portions of the river of internet traffic that travels on global communications cables,” which allows it to bypass protections put into place by Congress to prevent domestic surveillance on Americans.

***

One leaked top secret document from 2007 details a technique that allows the intelligence agency to exploit the global flow of internet data by tricking internet traffic into traveling through a set and specific route, such as undersea fiber cables that the agency actively monitors.

Leaked NSA document from 2007. (Image: source document)

The document’s example noted Yemen, a hotspot for terrorism and extremist activity. It is difficult to monitor because the NSA has almost no way to passively monitor internet traffic from the cables that run in and out of the country. By shaping the traffic, the agency can trick internet data to pass through undersea cables that are located on friendlier territory.

Goldberg’s research takes that logic and focuses it on US citizens, whose data and communications is out of bounds for the intelligence agencies without a valid warrant from the surveillance court.

The government only has to divert their internet data outside of the US to use the powers of the executive order to legally collect the data as though it was an overseas communication. Two Americans can send an email through Gmail, for example, but because their email is sent through or backed up in a foreign data center, the contents of that message can become “incidentally collected” under the executive order’s surveillance powers.

Thomas Drake – one of the top NSA executives, and Senior Change Leader within the NSA – blew the whistle on this deceptive practice more than a decade ago.

For his troubles, Drake was prosecuted under the Espionage Act and literally framed by the government.

Postscript:  Drake also notes that the government is storing for the long-term just about everything they’re collecting.

But don’t worry … the government would never think of doing anything bad with the information.