The War on Drugs is wrong on so many levels and yet it keeps expanding.

8:21 pm  •  17 June 2013  •  29 notes

(Source: anarchyandacupofcoffee)

12:38 pm  •  11 June 2013  •  233 notes

againstpower:

Analysts at the National Security Agency can now secretly access real-time user data provided by as many as 50 American companies, ranging from credit rating agencies to internet service providers, two government officials familiar with the arrangements said.

Several of the companies have provided records continuously since 2006, while others have given the agency sporadic access, these officials said. These officials disclosed the number of participating companies in order to provide context for a series of disclosures about the NSA’s domestic collection policies. The officials, contacted independently, repeatedly said that “domestic collection” does not mean that the target is based in the U.S. or is a U.S. citizen; rather, it refers only to the origin of the data.

(via lillabet)

1:43 am  •  9 June 2013  •  30 notes

New NSA PowerPoint Slide Posted by The Guardian Shows that PRISM Data is Collected “Directly From the Servers”

The slide, [above], details different methods of data collection under the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 (which was renewed in December 2012). It clearly distinguishes Prism, which involves data collection from servers, as distinct from four different programs involving data collection from “fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past”.

Essentially, the slide suggests that the NSA also collects some information under FAA702 from cable intercepts, but that process is distinct from Prism.

Analysts are encouraged to use both techniques of data gathering.

The Guardian’s initial reporting of Prism made clear the technology companies denied all knowledge of the program, and did not speculate on whether it would need such co-operation in order to work.

12:07 am  •  9 June 2013  •  8 notes

barticles:

In case you were wondering what the federal government can observe about you from your electronic activity - and when it gained that ability - here are two handy, once-top-secret slides.

According to the Washington Post,

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.

Regarding U.S. intelligence-gathering ability, Democratic Sen. Frank Church once warned: “That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.” Should such power fall into the wrong hands, he warned, “there would be no way to fight back.”

That was 38 years ago.

(via lillabet)

5:58 pm  •  7 June 2013  •  136 notes

The National Security Agency’s monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency’s activities.

If I were Senator Barack Obama right now I would be sooo pissed.

12:17 am  •  7 June 2013  •  20 notes

“An internal presentation on the Silicon Valley operation, intended for senior analysts in the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, described the new tool as the most prolific contributor to the President’s Daily Brief, which cited PRISM data in 1,477 articles last year. According to the briefing slides, obtained by The Washington Post, “NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.”

—

PRISM Started Under Bush, Grew “Exponentially” Under Obama

What’s important about this is that data gathered through PRISM actually contains the content of the messages, not just the “metadata” related to the Verizon tracking.

11:56 pm  •  6 June 2013  •  12 notes

“We have never heard of PRISM,” Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in a statement. “We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order.”

—

Apple Denies Knowledge of NSA “PRISM” Program

Previous reports indicated that the companies involved in the NSA’s “PRISM” surveillance program were doing so willingly.

8:21 pm  •  6 June 2013  •  21 notes

“The administration has now lost all credibility.”

—

The Editorial Board of the New York Times, here. (via jeffmiller)

4:53 pm  •  6 June 2013  •  294 notes

The top of Drudge is on fire right now.

11:02 am  •  6 June 2013  •  43 notes

This is news to whom exactly?:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order,a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

Everyone should take the time to read this article and then go over to Youtube and watch William Binney, an NSA whistleblower, say the exact same thing in an interview with RT late last year.

8:56 pm  •  5 June 2013  •  12 notes

awakentheworld:

The AP Spying Story: What You Aren’t Being Told (by corbettreport)

(via lillabet)

11:55 pm  •  29 May 2013  •  29 notes

The search warrant in the Rosen case cites Section 793(d) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. Section 793(d) says that a person lawfully in possession of information that the government has classified as secret who turns it over to someone not lawfully entitled to posses it has committed a crime. That might cover Rosen’s source.

Section 793(g) is a conspiracy count that says that anyone who conspires to help the source do that has committed the same crime. That would be the reporter.

It sounds as though this law criminalizes a lot of journalism. You might wonder how such a law ever got passed and why, for the last 90 years, it has very seldom produced prosecutions and investigations of journalists.

10:03 am  •  28 May 2013  •  6 notes

The terms for the warrant were hardly reasonable. This is the 4th amendment in the post 9/11 era. Nonexistent.

12:27 am  •  25 May 2013  •  9 notes

He’s already become the first attorney general ever to be held in contempt of Congress, after the Justice Department refused to comply with a House subpoena demanding documents about the department’s response to the Fast and Furious “gunwalking” scandal. He’s already been vilified by Republicans. He’s already been called on to resign.

All the while, President Barack Obama has stood by Holder, invoking executive privilege against Congress for the first time in his presidency — and doing so in an unusually broad fashion that arguably undercut his pledge to run the most transparent administration. Apart from a barrage of unpleasant news coverage, little of consequence happened.

2:11 pm  •  19 May 2013  •  7 notes