Report: NSA Can Access Everything On Your iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry

I have noted before that America now ranks with Putin's Russia and Communist China in terms of the level of surveillance - i.e., domestic spying - that its citizens are subjected to.  Indeed, as a new report makes clear, the only safe assumption is that one has no personal privacy whatsoever.  Adolph Hitler and the Nazi regime would have loved what America now does to its citizens via NSA surveillance.  A story at Talking Points Memo looks at a new report that indicates that the NSA can access EVERYTHING on your cell phone.  Here are excerpts:

The U.S. National Security Agency is able to crack protective measures on iPhones, BlackBerry and Android devices, giving it access to users’ data on all major smartphones, according to a report Sunday in German news weekly Der Spiegel.

The magazine cited internal documents from the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ in which the agencies describe setting up dedicated teams for each type of phone as part of their effort to gather intelligence on potential threats such as terrorists.

The data obtained this way includes contacts, call lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information, Der Spiegel reported. The documents don’t indicate that the NSA is conducting mass surveillance of phone users but rather that these techniques are used to eavesdrop on specific individuals, the magazine said.

The article doesn’t explain how the magazine obtained the documents, which are described as “secret.” But one of its authors is Laura Poitras, an American filmmaker with close contacts to NSA leaker Edward Snowden who has published several articles about the NSA in Der Spiegel in recent weeks.

Snowden’s revelations have sparked a heated debate in Germany about the country’s cooperation with the United States in intelligence matters.

On Saturday, thousands of people in Berlin protested the NSA’s alleged mass surveillance of Internet users. Many held placards with slogans such as “Stop watching us.”

Do I trust the NSA and the U.S. government not to abuse these abilities?  Not at all.

More Government Spying - XKeyscore: NSA Collects "Nearly Everything One Does on the Internet'

In yet another bombshell article, The Guardian has a piece that suggests that U.S. government spying on American citizens is even more pervasive than previously thought.  Indeed, nearly everything one does online can be collected and used for whatever nefarious purpose the government bureaucrats.  For all I know, I may have a dossier on me at NSA given some of my criticisms of Barack Obama and other parts of the U. S. government.  Naturally, "preventing terrorism" and "national security" are the excuses thrown out to justify such pervasive spying - the same excuses used by communist dictators in China and other dictators past and present in countries around the globe.  Is there any proof of this other than statements by government officials?  Of course not.  The information is all classified and secret.  Here are article highlights:

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.

The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.

The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.

"I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".

US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."

But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.

XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.

In a second Guardian interview in June, Snowden elaborated on his statement about being able to read any individual's email if he had their email address. He said the claim was based in part on the email search capabilities of XKeyscore, which Snowden says he was authorized to use while working as a Booz Allen contractor for the NSA.

Beyond emails, the XKeyscore system allows analysts to monitor a virtually unlimited array of other internet activities, including those within social media.  An NSA tool called DNI Presenter, used to read the content of stored emails, also enables an analyst using XKeyscore to read the content of Facebook chats or private messages.

In a letter this week to senator Ron Wyden, director of national intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that NSA analysts have exceeded even legal limits as interpreted by the NSA in domestic surveillance.   Acknowledging what he called "a number of compliance problems", Clapper attributed them to "human error" or "highly sophisticated technology issues" rather than "bad faith".

Reading all of this, it really is no surprise that the lack of personal freedom from surveillance in America landed in the same category as that of Russia and China.     So much for privacy and freedom from big brother watching your every move.

Bradley Manning Verdict: Not Guilty of Aiding the Enemy

Bradley Manning was found guilty of violating the Espionage Act by a military judge but was acquitted of the separate and far more serious charge of “aiding the enemy.”  Manning now “faces a possible maximum sentence of more than 130 years in military jail when his sentence is handed down.  Personally, I hope Manning receives a light sentence.  I believe that he was a whistle blower who provided an invaluable service in exposing some of the war crimes committed by American troops in the fool's errands launched by the feckless Chimperator Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney.  What I find most disturbing is that while Barack Obama has feign horror at the war crimes authorized by the Bush/Cheney regime, his administration has spent more time and effort prosecuting those who have exposed the crimes rather than prosecuting those who committed or authorized the crimes in the first place.   The end conclusion?  First, that Barack Obama is morally bankrupt and is not much better than Bush/Cheney in this regard.  Second, that a harsh sentence for Manning will be one more step towards totalitarianism which will intimidate the press.   A piece in The Guardian looks at Obama's unrelenting war on whistle blowers and, by extension, the press.  Here are highlights:

The American journalism trade is breathing a collective – but premature and, in many cases, grossly hypocritical – sigh of relief today. A military judge has found Bradley Manning guilty of many crimes, but "aiding the enemy" isn't one of them.

Had the judge found Manning guilty of aiding the enemy, she would have set a terrible precedent. For the first time, an American court – albeit a military court – would have said it was a potentially capital crime simply to give information to a news organization, because in the internet era an enemy would ultimately have been able to read what was leaked.

However, if journalism dodged one figurative bullet, it faces many more in this era. The ever-more-essential field of national security journalism was already endangered. It remains so. The Obama administration's war on leaks and, by extension, the work of investigative reporters who dare to challenge the most secretive government in our lifetimes, has been unrelenting.

The Manning verdict had plenty of bad news for the press. By finding Manning guilty of five counts of espionage, the judge endorsed the government's other radical theories, and left the journalism organization that initially passed along the leaks to the public, Wikileaks, no less vulnerable than it had been before the case started. Anyone who thinks Julian Assange isn't still a target of the US Government hasn't been paying attention; if the US can pry him loose from Ecuador's embassy in London and extradite him, you can be certain that he'll face charges, too, and the Manning verdict will be vital to that case.

The military tried its best to make life difficult for journalists covering the Manning trial, but activists – not traditional journalists – were the ones who fought restrictions most successfully.

National security journalist Jeremy Scahill summed it up after the verdict when he told Democracy Now: "We're in a moment when journalism is being criminalized."

For those who want to tell the public what the government is doing with our money and in our name, there are new imperatives. Governmental secrecy, surveillance and the systematic silencing of whistleblowers require updated methods for journalists and journalism organizations of all kinds. Americans pursuing this craft have to understand the risks and find countermeasures.

That is not enough. The public needs to awaken to the threat to its own freedoms from the Obama crackdown on leaks and, by extension, journalism and free speech itself. We are, more and more, a society where unaccountable people can commit unspeakable acts with impunity. They are creating a surveillance state that makes not just dissent, but knowledge itself, more and more dangerous. What we know about this is entirely due to leakers and their outlets. Ignorance is only bliss for the unaccountable.

Yes, I supported Obama over Romney, but in politics, often one has to pick the lesser of the evils.  Obama's persecution of whistle blowers and his refusal to sign and ENDA like executive order speak volumes and none of it good.   This portion of a piece in the Virginian Pilot on the verdict continues to haunt me:

Manning acknowledged giving WikiLeaks more than 700,000 battlefield reports and diplomatic cables, and video of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack that killed civilians in Iraq, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver.

The video released by Manning showed the American military members involved exulting in the deaths of totally innocent civilians.  It makes me very ashamed to be an American.

Poll: Majority of Americans Say Snowden Is A Whistleblower, Not A Traitor

Over my vacation I read the book "In the Garden of Evil" by Erik Larson which recounts the experiences of William E. Dodd, America’s Ambassador to Germany and his family in Third Reich Germany over the four years from 1933 t0 1937.  It is an interesting read and demonstrates how a democracy can be subverted into a dictatorship by a small group of individuals.  One of the many things that was striking was how the German populace closed their eyes to growing domestic spying and ultimately terror against citizens, especially those of Jewish descent, which was justified as necessary for domestic stability and national security.  As we all know, by the time many woke up to reality, it was too late to stop Hitler and his megalomania.  I'm am by no means comparing either George W. Bush/Dick Cheney or now Barack Obama to Hitler, but the justifications for the NSA's spying on American citizens sounds frighteningly similar to the Nazi's justifications for actions that led both to domestic terror against anyone deemed non-supportive of the Nazi regime and, of course, the nightmare of World War II.  A new poll reported on in Talking Points Memo suggests that so far the America public is not as complacent as Germans in the 1930's.  Here are story highlights:

A majority of American voters believe National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University released Wednesday morning.

The nationwide poll found that 55 percent of voters regard Snowden, the 30-year-old former defense contractor who leaked details of top secret surveillance programs, as a whistleblower. A mere 34 percent labeled him a traitor. 

The poll suggested that a majority of the country disagrees with much of Capitol Hill, with bipartisan chorus of lawmakers — from Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) — characterizing Snowden as a traitor.

One can only hope that Barack Obama and members of Congress from both parties are listening.  The America public needs to know what the crimes committed in their name (i.e., Bradley Manning's disclosure of war crimes) and likely unconstitutional domestic spying on U.S. citizens.

Is Another National Security Agency Bombshell Coming?

As Edward Snowden continues to search for a country that will grant him amnesty and protection against extradition to face the wrath of the Obama administration which is deeply pissed off that the magnitude of domestic spying has been made public, Glenn Greenwald - who broke the initial NSA spying story - says another bombshell will soon be dropped.   Politico looks at Greenwald's statements about more disturbing information to come.  Here are excerpts:

Another big National Security Agency scoop is coming soon, Glenn Greenwald said on Tuesday.

Although Greenwald wouldn’t reveal exactly what the new revelations are, he said the world “will be shocked.”

“I will say that there are vast programs, both domestic and international spying, that the world will be shocked to learn about, that the NSA is engaged in with no democratic accountability and that’s what driving our reporting,” Greenwald said.

Greenwald also said President Barack Obama’s administration is using leaker Edward Snowden as an example to prevent future whistleblowers from coming forward.

“I think what the Obama administration wants, and has been trying to establish for the last almost five years now with the unprecedented war on whistleblowers that it is waging, and to make it so that everybody is petrified of coming forward with information about what our political officials are doing in the dark that is deceitful, illegal or corrupt,” Greenwald said.