6/28/2013

OBAMA YELLS AT HIS STAFF FOR NOT HAVING HIS SPEECH IN FRONT OF HIM

President Obama strolled out to the podium on June 7, 2013 in San Jose, CA and was immediately at a loss for words. Not only did the President not have teleprompter, his aides forgot his speech.

“My remarks are not sitting here,” the President declared awkwardly. “I’m uhhh….people….oh goodness….uhhhh...folks are sweating back there right now.”

"PEOPLE!"

What a disrespectful, disdainful, incompetent empty suit......he can't put a sentence together unless it's on a teleprompter in front of his stupid face...

WORST...PRESIDENT...EVER...

DR

6/20/2013

NSA DIRECTOR PRAISES FBI CHIEF FOR SUPPORTIVE TESTIMONY ON SURVEILLANCE PROGRAMS

From the UK DailyMail:

The director of the National Security Agency was overheard offering a round of beer to the FBI's second-in-command following Tuesday's congressional hearing on the NSA's controversial surveillance programs.

The three-hour hearing had just wrapped up around 1 p.m. when NSA Director Keith Alexander turned to FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce and praised him for his testimony.

'Thank you, Sean,' Alexander said, according to a clip of the exchange that was first reported by Ben Doernberg.

'Tell your boss I owe him another friggin' beer,' he added.

'Yeah?' Joyce responded.

'Yeah,' said Alexander.

'Tell him to give it to me,' Joyce said.

Alexander and Joyce sat side-by-side during the hearing and took turns answering questions from lawmakers about the recently disclosed government surveillance programs.
-------------

Now tell me again there is no cover-up going on...go on...try to convince me...

DR

6/16/2013

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

There are baby-daddy's...and there are real fathers...

Real fathers are:

the ones that are interested in what their children have to say, even if it's something they've heard 100 times before...

the ones that take the time to let their children know just how much they love them...and show it every day...

the ones that marvel at the miracles God has sent them...

the ones that teach their children...even if it means the job will take twice as long...

you know who you are...

Happy Father's Day!

6/14/2013

HAPPY FLAG DAY

For many people, the United States Flag is a reminder of what this nation stands for and the freedoms so dearly fought for.

Two hundred thirty-six years ago today, the Continental Congress adopted a flag with 13 stars and 13 stripes. Our flag today has 50 stars, but the stars and stripes remain the same. And the flag is still a reminder of freedom and democracy.

Celebrating Flag Day began on June 14, 1885 when Bernard J. Cigrand, a 19 year old teacher at Stony Hill School, placed a 10 inch, 38 star flag in a bottle on his desk.

It wasn't until May 30, 1916 when President Wilson issued a proclamation calling for a nation wide observance of Flag Day that Cigrand's lifelong dream of honoring our flag was realized.

So, Happy Flag Day to each and every one of you. Remember our forefathers and the men and women of this country that have never forgotten the value of freedom and the symbol of what we continue to fight for today.

6/13/2013

OBAMA "FAMILY" TRIP TO AFRICA GOING TO COST AMERICAN TAXPAYERS $60,000,000 TO $100,000,000.00

FILE THIS UNDER "ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME"???!!

WHAT IN THE HELL ARE THEY GOING TO SOUTH AFRICA FOR THAT WILL COST US THIS MUCH?

THEY WILL BE IN AFRICA JUNE 26 - JULY 3...ONE WEEK!!!

OBAMAO THINKS NOTHING OF FURLOUGHING CAREGIVERS FOR OUR WOUNDED MILITARY...

UGH...I AM SICK TO MY STOMACH OVER THIS DISGUSTING P.O.S.

DR

BANK ROBBERY SUSPECT WANTS NSA SURVEILLANCE RECORDS FOR DEFENSE

FROM BREITBART:

Terrance Brown, 40, is on trial in South Florida for allegedly conspiring with four other men to hijack armored trucks delivering cash to banks in 2010. All have pleaded not guilty. But now Brown has come up with a unique defense: he wants the National Security Agency to turn over his phone records to the court to demonstrate his innocence.

The case, which is taking place in federal court, involves phone records – the FBI and prosecutors have been using cellphone records to demonstrate the men’s locations near the robbery attempts. The prosecution said that it was unable to get cellphone records from the time before September 2010 because the phone carrier had destroyed the records.

-------------------

You gotta admit...it's pretty creative

6/11/2013

ACLU SUES OVER NSA PHONE RECORDS PROGRAM

FINALLY!

AN ACLU LAWSUIT I CAN SUPPORT!

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BREAKDOWN ABOUT JUST EXACTLY WHAT IS WRONG WITH NSA SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS.

DR

JOE BIDEN - IN 2006 - NSA COLLECTION OF PHONE CALLS A VIOLATION OF PRIVACY

WAIT...WHAT?

SO WHAT ARE WE TO BELIEVE HERE?

WHAT ARE YOU SAYIN, JOE?

IT'S NOT OKAY FOR A REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION TO COLLECT THIS KIND OF DATA BUT IT'S OK WHEN OBAMA DOES IT?

WELL I'LL TELL YOU WHAT....IT'S NOT OKAY TO COLLECT THIS DATA WITHOUT ANY REASON TO BELIEVE THERE IS WRONGDOING ON THE PART OF THE VICTIMS.

DR

6/10/2013

EDWARD SNOWDEN REVEALS THE CANCER WITHIN OUR GOVERNMENT

The demonization of Edward Snowden has already begun. It was so predictable that he even mentioned it in his interview with the Guardian.

The government is now in damage control mode and Edward Snowden is the enemy.

Just today CBSreports that they have uncovered documents that show the State Department may have covered up allegations of illegal and inappropriate behavior within their ranks.

That “..according to an internal State Department Inspector General’s memo, several recent investigations were influenced, manipulated or simply called off.”

Yet we hear government mouthpieces calling Edward Snowden a traitor.

Yesterday Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the 9/11 whistleblower on the Able Danger program, said on Fox News that Snowden has essentially defected to China, and that whatever information he possesses about this program the Chinese either already have or likely will in the near future.

One thing about Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer – he is a whistleblower himself. He claimed that he alerted the FBI in September 2000 – yes, one year BEFORE 9/11 – about the information uncovered by the secret military unit “Able Danger”, but he alleged that three meetings he set up with bureau officials were blocked by military lawyers.

What did CBS report? “..investigations were influenced, manipulated or simply called off.”

Shaffer gave the 9/11 Commission this information and they DID NOT INCLUDE IT IN THEIR FINAL REPORT. (you can read the rest here)

The point is…Edward Snowden has worked inside this government…he knows how they operate. Did he also know that if he went to a superior, as Lt. Col Anthony Shaffer suggested, that his concerns would be ignored? Of course he did.

The current president – Obama – had great words for whistleblowers right after his election. He even went so far as to call them courageous. It’s still there today, on his website change.gov:

· Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

Fair words from then candidate Obama...but, as always with him, they were only words.

Thomas Drake, a former NSA employee who was a whistleblower on NSA waste has been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking NSA documents.

William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe and Edward Loomis are three more former NSA employees charged under the same act for exposing NSA WASTE…what did Edward Snowden think would happen to him for revealing something much more egregious…spying on innocent American citizens?

So, accept what you hear and read about Edward Snowden with care my friends.

As Snowden said in his interview with Glenn Greenwald "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight."

And that very government is scrambling right now to put all the pieces of their shield of secrecy back in place so that we will continue to remain in the dark about what they are doing and who they are doing it to.

To quote Obi-Wan "Nothing to see here. Move along."

6/09/2013

MAXINE WATERS REVEALED OBAMA'S SECRET DATA BASE FILLED WITH VOTERS' PRIVATE INFO

FROM BREITBART:

In February Breitbart TV first revealed this video of Rep Maxine Waters bragging about Obama collecting Americans information.
“The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life,” Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday.

“That’s going to be very, very powerful,” Waters said. “That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They’re going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can’t get around it. And he’s [President Obama] been very smart. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”--------------------------------------

DON'T TELL ME THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON.

THIS IS THE SAME WOMAN WHO, IN 2008 DURING A CONGRESSIONAL HEARING, LECTURED OIL COMPANY EXECUTIVES "GUESS WHAT THIS LIBERAL WOULD BE ALL ABOUT? THIS LIBERAL WOULD BE ABOUT SOCIALIZING...UH...UM...WOULD BE ABOUT...BASICALLY...TAKING OVER...AND THE GOVERNMENT RUNNING ALL OF YOUR COMPANIES"

DR

EDWARD SNOWDEN, NSA WHISTLEBLOWER, EXPLAINS WHY HE DID IT

GOD BLESS THIS COURAGEOUS MAN.

From the Guardian
The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows
DR

6/08/2013

NSA DIRECTOR KEITH ALEXANDER LIED TO CONGRESS ABOUT SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS

From the Daily Mail in the U.K.

During a March 2012 congressional hearing, NSA Director Keith Alexander told Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson - 14 times - that his agency wasn't engaged in collecting the kind of domestic digital data that has now become the subject of embarrassing disclosures.

At 2:46 on the video Rep. Johnson begins asking the pointed questions about NSA spying on American citizens. Each question is answered with an emphatic "NO" by then NSA Director Keith Alexander.

DR

NSA WHISTLEBLOWERS: AGGREGATED METADATA CAN BE MORE REVEALING THAN CONTENT

From Fox News Insider:

NSA whistleblowers J. Kirk Wiebe and Bill Binney have been sounding the alarm about government intrusion into Americans' privacy for years. They joined Megyn Kelly today to give us some revealing insights into how the agency works after President Obama defended the need to monitor Americans' phone calls.

Obama said today that nobody at NSA is listening to your phone calls, saying they are gathering "metadata" like the numbers involved in a call, how long it was, and where it was made from. But Wiebe said there is a common misconception going around about this aspect of the program.

"Aggregated metadata can be more revealing than content. It's very important to realize that when an entity collects information about you that includes locations, bank transactions, credit card transactions, travel plans, EZPass on and off tollways; all of that that can be time-lined. To track you day to day to the point where people can get insight into your intentions and what you're going to do next. It is difficult to get that from content unless you exploit every piece, and even then a lot of content is worthless," he explained.

Mr. Wiebe said something very interesting and telling:

"There is nothing unique about human beings that work at NSA that's different from human beings that work at the IRS or that work at the DOJ...We don't need to operate on a wink and a nod 'trust me'."

Binney stated "..they chose to go to the 'dark side' because that was their choice."

Both men agree that the current administration chose to collect everyone's data, guilty or not, and ignore the original programming they had put in place that encrypted private citizen's information and only focused on terrorist activity.

DR

NSA WHISTLEBLOWER: EVERYONE IN U.S. UNDER SURVEILLANCE, ALL INFO STORED, EVERYTHING

AS USUAL AND UNFORTUNATELY, THIS STORY WAS NOT COVERED BY THE LAPDOG GOVERNMENT-CONTROLLED-MEDIA-COMPLEX BACK IN DECEMBER OF 2012.

THE RUSSIAN TIMES DID THIS INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM BINNEY, THE FORMER NSA EMPLOYEE, AN EXTREMELY COURAGEOUS WHISTLEBLOWER THAT HAS BEEN WARNING PEOPLE ABOUT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE ON IT'S OWN CITIZENS.

AT 7:55 IN THE VIDEO THE R.T. CORRESPONDENT ASKS A QUESTION "IT SEEMS THAT THE PUBLIC IS DIVIDED BETWEEN THOSE WHO THINK THAT THE GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM VIOLATES THEIR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND THOSE WHO SAY I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE SO WHY SHOULD I CARE. WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THOSE WHO THINK THAT THIS SHOULDN'T CONCERN THEM?"

LISTEN TO HIS ANSWER.

"THE PROBLEM IS, IF THEY DON'T THINK THEY'RE DOING ANYTHING WRONG THEY DON'T GET TO DEFINE THAT. THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT DOES.

THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT DECIDES WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG AND WHETHER OR NOT THEY TARGET YOU...IF THEIR POSITION IS AGAINST SOMETHING THE ADMINISTRATION HAS, THEN THEY COULD EASILY BECOME A TARGET."

CHILLING WORDS.

WHEN ASKED WHAT THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS THING HE HAD COME ACROSS WHILE AT NSA, MR. BINNEY REPLIED "THE VIOLATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION AND ANY NUMBER OF LAWS THAT EXISTED AT THE TIME. THAT I COULD NOT LIVE WITH. THAT IS WHY I LEFT."

IF YOU THINK, FOR EVEN ONE NANOSECOND, THAT THIS ADMINISTRATION IS NOT VIOLATING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS...THAT WHEN OBAMA SAYS 'IT'S FOR PROTECTION AGAINST TERRORISTS'...YOU NEED TO TAKE THE BLINDERS OFF AND SEE THIS FOR WHAT IT IS.

AS MR. BINNEY STATES IN THE VIDEO, THE ORIGINAL PROGRAM WAS DESIGNED WITH ENCRYPTIONS TO FILTER OUT EVERYTHING THAT WAS NOT TERRORIST RELATED AND ONLY LOOK AT THE THINGS THAT WERE.

THOSE SAFEGUARDS AGAINST UNNECESSARY SPYING ON INNOCENT CITIZENS ARE NOW GONE.

THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS NOT ONLY STEPPED OVER THE LINE...THEY HAVE MARCHED OVER THE DIVIDE THE CONSTITUTION PROVIDED AS PROTECTION AGAINST AN OPPRESSIVE AND INTRUSIVE GOVERNMENT.

MR BINNEY STATED HE IS WORKING WITH THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION TO GET THIS CASE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT. VISIT THEIR WEBSITE. SUPPORT THEM IF YOU CAN, BUT AT LEAST SIGN UP TO BE KEPT INFORMED ABOUT THEIR PROGRESS.

DR

6/07/2013

DEM SENATORS: OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S PATRIOT ACT INTERPRETATION IS WARPED AND DISTORTED

Jake Tapper of CNN interviewed Glenn Greenwald, the reporter for the Guardian, that broke the story of the National Security Administration (NSA) "extreme surveillance" of American citizens with Verizon wireless phones.

"These are Democratic Party senators, who are loyal to President Obama and their party," Greenwald says. "[They] have spent years now, saying, ‘Please listen to us.' What the Obama administration is doing in interpreting the Patriot Act is so warped and distorted and it vests themselves with such extremist surveillance powers over the United States and American citizens that Americans, in their words, would be 'stunned' to learn what the Obama administration was doing."

DR

H/T: Breitbart

6/06/2013

REP. TREY GOWDY'S EPIC TAKEDOWN OF IRS AT HEARING

REP. GOWDY IS ONE OF MY FAVORITES IN CONGRESS TODAY.

DR

H/T: GREG HENGLER AT TOWNHALL

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY'S UNAUTHORIZED SPYING ON U.S. CITIZENS IS PART OF PREVIOUSLY UNDISCLOSED PROGRAM CALLED PRISM

OUR OWN GOVERNMENT SPYING ON LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS BECAUSE WHY? NOT FOR ANY OTHER REASON THAN BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY CAN!

NO SEARCH WARRANTS. NO SUSPECTS.

OUR GOVERNMENT; OUR MILITARY IN THE FORM OF THE NSA, IS SPYING ON EVERY SINGLE THING EVERY CITIZEN DOES IN THIS COUNTRY.

THE TECH COMPANIES ARE DENYING ALL KNOWLEDGE OF IT. WHETHER THEY ARE TELLING THE TRUTH OR RUNNING FOR COVER REMAINS TO BE SEEN. IF THEY WERE NOT AWARE OF THIS, AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TOOK THIS UPON THEMSELVES, THIS IS BEYOND BAD.

THIS IS EXTREMELY A SERIOUS AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS DEVELOPMENT, FOLKS.

SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE...AND SOON...TO STOP THIS RUNAWAY TRAIN. HEARINGS ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT THE ANSWER.

FROM THE (NON) COMPLIANCE OF ALL THE CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIONS RANGING FROM FAST AND FURIOUS TO BENGHAZI TO THE IRS SCANDALS, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN STONEWALLING CONGRESS AND IGNORING EVERY DEMAND FOR DOCUMENTS.

THIS ADMINISTRATION OBVIOUSLY THINKS IT IS ABOVE THE LAW.

WE NEED TO GET OUR CONGRESSMEN, EVERY ONE OF THEM, TO MAKE STOPPING THIS A TOP PRIORITY.

ONCE AGAIN, FROM THE GUARDIAN - A UNITED KINGDOM NEWS OUTLET, NOT A U.S. GOVERNMENT-CONTROLLED-MEDIA-COMPLEX ONE:

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.

Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program. (my emphasis)

In a statement, Google said: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data."

Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. "If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge," one said.

An Apple spokesman said it had "never heard" of PRISM.

The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012.

The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.

It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants. (my emphasis)

Disclosure of the PRISM program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers.

The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata.

Some of the world's largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan "Yourprivacy is our priority" – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.

It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.

Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.

The extent and nature of the data collected from each company varies.

Companies are legally obliged to comply with requests for users' communications under US law, but the PRISM program allows the intelligence services direct access to the companies' servers. The NSA document notes the operations have "assistance of communications providers in the US".

The revelation also supports concerns raised by several US senators during the renewal of the Fisa Amendments Act in December 2012, who warned about the scale of surveillance the law might enable, and shortcomings in the safeguards it introduces.

When the FAA was first enacted, defenders of the statute argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA's inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the PRISM program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications off the companies' servers.

A chart prepared by the NSA, contained within the top-secret document obtained by the Guardian, underscores the breadth of the data it is able to obtain: email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers, social networking details, and more.

--------------------------------

READ THE REST OF THE STORY AT THE GUARDIAN.
DR

H/T TO MATT DRUDGE.

MICROSOFT, YAHOO, GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, PALTALK, AOL, SKYPE, YOUTUBE, APPLE ALL BEING DATAMINED

IT IS WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.

MUCH WORSE.

THE WASHINGTON POST RAN THIS ARTICLE TONIGHT:

Documents: U.S. mining data from 9 leading Internet firms; companies deny knowledge

By Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras, Updated: Thursday, June 6, 5:29 PM

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 one target or trace a whole network of associates, 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.” (my emphasis)

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 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.

The court-approved program is focused on foreign communications traffic, which often flows through U.S. servers even when sent from one overseas location to another. Between 2004 and 2007, Bush administration lawyers persuaded federal FISA judges to issue surveillance orders in a fundamentally new form. Until then the government had to show probable cause that a particular “target” and “facility” were both connected to terrorism or espionage.

In four new orders, which remain classified, the court defined massive data sets as “facilities” and agreed to occasionally certify that the government had reasonable procedures in place to minimize collection of “U.S. persons” data without a warrant.

Several companies contacted by The Post said they had no knowledge of the program and responded only to individual requests for information.

“We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers,” said Joe Sullivan, chief security officer for Facebook. “When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law.”

“We have never heard of PRISM,” an Apple spokesman said. “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.”

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 they 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.

An internal presentation of 41 briefing slides on PRISM, dated April 2013 and 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 slides and other supporting materials obtained by The Post, “NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.

That is a remarkable figure in an agency that measures annual intake in the trillions of communications. It is all the more striking because the NSA, whose lawful mission is foreign intelligence, is reaching deep inside the machinery of American companies that host hundreds of millions of American-held accounts on American soil.

The technology companies, which knowingly participate in PRISM operations, include most of the dominant global players of Silicon Valley, according to the document. They are listed on a roster that bears their logos in order of entry into the program: “Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” PalTalk, although much smaller, has hosted significant traffic during the Arab Spring and in the ongoing Syrian civil war.

Dropbox, the cloud storage and synchronization service, is described as “coming soon.”
Government officials declined to comment for this article.

“I would just push back on the idea that the court has signed off on it, so why worry?” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “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.”

Roots in the ’70s

PRISM is an heir, in one sense, to a history of intelligence alliances with as many as 100 trusted U.S. companies since the 1970s. The NSA calls these Special Source Operations, and PRISM falls under that rubric.

The Silicon Valley operation works alongside a parallel program, code-named BLARNEY, that gathers up “metadata” — address packets, device signatures and the like — as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet. BLARNEY’s top-secret program summary, set down alongside a cartoon insignia of a shamrock and a leprechaun hat, describes it as “an ongoing collection program that leverages IC [intelligence community] and commercial partnerships to gain access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks.”

But the PRISM program appears to more nearly resemble the most controversial of the warrantless surveillance orders issued by President George W. Bush after the al-Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Its history, in which President Obama presided over exponential growth in a program that candidate Obama criticized, shows how fundamentally surveillance law and practice have shifted away from individual suspicion in favor of systematic, mass collection techniques.

The PRISM program is not a dragnet, exactly. From inside a company’s data stream the NSA is capable of pulling out anything it likes, but under current rules the agency does not try to collect it all.
Analysts who use the system from a Web portal in Fort Meade, Md., key in “selectors,” or search terms, that are designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s “foreignness.” That is not a very stringent test. Training materials obtained by The Post instruct new analysts to submit accidentally collected U.S. content for a quarterly report but add that “it’s nothing to worry about.”

Even when the system works just as advertised, with no American singled out for targeting, the NSA routinely collects a great deal of American content. That is described as “incidental,” and it is inherent in contact chaining, one of the basic tools of the trade. To collect on a suspected spy or foreign terrorist means, at minimum, that everyone in the suspect’s inbox or outbox is swept in. Intelligence analysts are typically taught to chain through contacts two “hops” out from their target, which increases “incidental collection” exponentially. The same math explains the aphorism, from the John Guare play, that no one is more than “six degrees of separation” from any other person.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who had classified knowledge of the program as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, were unable to speak of it when they warned in a Dec. 27, 2012, floor debate that the FISA Amendments Act had what both of them called a “back-door search loophole” for the content of innocent Americans who were swept up in a search for someone else.
“As it is written, there is nothing to prohibit the intelligence community from searching through a pile of communications, which may have been incidentally or accidentally been collected without a warrant, to deliberately search for the phone calls or e-mails of specific Americans.”

A ‘directive’

In exchange for immunity from lawsuits, companies such as Yahoo and AOL are obliged to accept a “directive” from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to open their servers to the FBI’s Data Intercept Technology Unit, which handles liaison to U.S. companies from the NSA. In 2008, Congress gave the Justice Department authority for a secret order from the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court to compel a reluctant company “to comply.”

In practice, there is room for a company to maneuver, delay or resist. When a clandestine intelligence program meets a highly regulated industry, said a lawyer with experience in bridging the gaps, neither side wants to risk a public fight. The engineering problems are so immense, in systems of such complexity and frequent change, that the FBI and NSA would be hard pressed to build in back doors without active help from each company.

Apple demonstrated that resistance is possible when it held out for more than five years, for reasons unknown, after Microsoft became PRISM’s first corporate partner in May 2007. Twitter, which has cultivated a reputation for aggressive defense of its users’ privacy, is still conspicuous by its absence from the list of “private sector partners.”

“Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data,” a company spokesman said. “We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a ‘back door’ for the government to access private user data.”

Like market researchers, but with far more privileged access, collection managers in the NSA’s Special Source Operations group, which oversees the PRISM program, are drawn to the wealth of information about their subjects in online accounts. For much the same reason, civil libertarians and some ordinary users may be troubled by the menu available to analysts who hold the required clearances to “task” the PRISM system.

There has been “continued exponential growth in tasking to Facebook and Skype,” according to the PRISM slides. With a few clicks and an affirmation that the subject is believed to be engaged in terrorism, espionage or nuclear proliferation, an analyst obtains full access to Facebook’s “extensive search and surveillance capabilities against the variety of online social networking services.”

According to a separate “User’s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection,” that service can be monitored for audio when one end of the call is a conventional telephone and for any combination of “audio, video, chat, and file transfers” when Skype users connect by computer alone. Google’s offerings include Gmail, voice and video chat, Google Drive files, photo libraries, and live surveillance of search terms.

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,” (my emphasis) the officer said.

Poitras is a documentary filmmaker and MacArthur Fellow. Julie Tate and Robert O’Harrow Jr. contributed to this report.

Graphic: NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program Special Report: Top Secret America

© The Washington Post Company
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DR

IF I WANTED AMERICA TO FAIL...

THIS IS EXCELLENT...DON'T KNOW HOW I DIDN'T FIND IT BEFORE...BUT HERE IT IS NOW

If I Wanted America To Fail ...

To follow, not lead; to suffer, not prosper; to despair, not dream.

I would start with energy.

I'd cut off America's supply of cheap, abundant energy. I couldn't take it by force. So, I'd make Americans feel guilty for using the energy that heats their homes, fuels their cars, runs their businesses, and powers their economy.

I'd make cheap energy expensive, so that expensive energy would seem cheap.

I would empower unelected bureaucrats to all-but-outlaw America's most abundant sources of energy. And after banning its use in America, I'd make it illegal for American companies to ship it overseas.