Did the NSA Hack into Google and Yahoo?

The revelations about the National Security Administration's ("NSA") lawless disregard for legal limits that keep flowing from the documents released by Edward Snowden seem to know no end.  Now, it is reported that the NSA hacked into Google and Yahoo's systems and spied on millions and millions of indviduals, many of them American citizens.  As noted before, Hitler's Nazi regime would be envious of what the NSA has done in terms of domestic spying.  Not surprisingly, the NSA is denying the reports, but based on what we've seen to date, I believe the NSA folks about as much as I could throw an aircraft carrier across Hampton Roads harbor.  CNN has some details.  Here are excerpts:

The National Security Agency's director flatly denied a Washington Post report Wednesday that the NSA secretly broke into communications links that connect Google and Yahoo data centers, calling the newspaper's allegation false.

Army Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director, pushed back against the report that cites leaked classified documents, saying the agency does not illegally access the servers of Internet companies.

"The servers and everything we do with those, those companies work with us. They are compelled to work with us. This isn't something the court just said, 'Would you please work with them and throw data over it.' This is compelled. And this is specific requirements that come from a court order," Alexander said at a cybersecurity conference in Washington.

"This is not NSA breaking into any databases. It would be illegal for us to do that. So, I don't know what the report is. But I can tell you factually we do not have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers. We go through a court order."

The Washington Post report is the latest in a series of allegations that stem from disclosures given to news organizations by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who describes himself as a whistle-blower.

The operation is code named MUSCULAR, and it is operated jointly by the NSA and its UK counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters, The Washington Post reported, citing the documents.

According to The Washington Post, the NSA and the Government Communications Headquarters are copying data flowing through fiber-optic network cables overseas, and the NSA sends millions of the records from Yahoo and Google to data warehouses at its headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

There is no oversight of the NSA operation because it is occurring overseas out of the reach of the court, according to the report.

The report raised the concern of Google and Yahoo, with the Internet behemoths saying they never gave the NSA permission to access communication links to their respective servers.

"We have strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency," said Yahoo spokeswoman Sarah Meron.

Google has "long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we have continued to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links," said David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer.

"We do not provide any government, including the U.S. government, with access to our systems. We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform."

The newspaper report emerged a day after Alexander and James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, testified before a House committee reviewing the agency's surveillance activities.

I for one increasingly view Snowden as a super patriot who wanted Americans to know about the lawlessness of branches of the United States government, the NSA in particular.  Domestic spying is illegal except in certain narrow instances.  It's arguably a violation of the U.S. Constitution, in fact.  

U.S. Mining Data From 9 Leading Internet Firm - Firms Deny Knowledge

The full scope of the police state like tactics of the U.S. Government's spying on American citizens continues to unfold and, in my view, ought to be very disturbing to those who value privacy and freedom.  Some will say "I have nothing to hide, and I don't care" but that mindset is missing the bigger issue: unless one is a suspect of criminal activities, your personal information and data should not be subject to scrutiny by the government or anyone else.  What we are seeing is that all of us under a level of scrutiny that makes the former Soviet Union's KGB look like a rant beginner in information gathering.  And it needs to be stressed that this program of domestic spying began under Chimperator George W. Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney not the Obama administration, although it is troubling that Obama has not ceased some of the worse abuses.  A Washington Post story looks at the fact that the situation with Verizon is merely the tip of the iceberg.  Here are highlights:

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.

Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”

PRISM was launched from the ashes of President George W. Bush’s secret program of warrantless domestic surveillance in 2007, after news media disclosures, lawsuits and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court forced the president to look for new authority.

Congress obliged with the Protect America Act in 2007 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which immunized private companies that cooperated voluntarily with U.S. intelligence collection. PRISM recruited its first partner, Microsoft, and began six years of rapidly growing data collection beneath the surface of a roiling national debate on surveillance and privacy. Late last year, when critics in Congress sought changes in the FISA Amendments Act, the only lawmakers who knew about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.

Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “I would just push back on the idea that the court has signed off on it, so why worry? This is a court that meets in secret, allows only the government to appear before it, and publishes almost none of its opinions. It has never been an effective check on government.”

Several companies contacted by The Post said they had no knowledge of the program, did not allow direct government access to their servers and asserted that they responded only to targeted requests for information.

Government officials and the document itself made clear that the NSA regarded the identities of its private partners as PRISM’s most sensitive secret, fearing that the companies would withdraw from the program if exposed. “98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google and Microsoft; we need to make sure we don’t harm these sources,” the briefing’s author wrote in his speaker’s notes.

Firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities, is what drove a career intelligence officer to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.

Every police state has always claimed justification for spying on its citizens.  America has taken this nightmarish surveillance to frightening new levels.  I for one will not be sleeping better at night.