WATCH | The Obama administration distributed thousands of intelligence reports with the unredacted names of U.S. residents during the 2016 election.
During his final year in office, President Obama’s team significantly expanded efforts to search National Security Agency intercepts for information about Americans, distributing thousands of intelligence reports across government with the unredacted names of U.S. residents during the midst of a divisive 2016 presidential election.
The data, made available this week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, provides the clearest evidence to date of how information accidentally collected by the NSA overseas about Americans was subsequently searched and disseminated after President Obama loosened privacy protections to make such sharing easier in 2011 in the name of national security. A court affirmed his order.
WikiLeaks published 676 source code files today which it claimed are from CIA It says the CIA disguised its own hacking attacks to make it appear those responsible were Russian, Chinese, Iranian or North Korean
By MAIL ONLINE REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 07:02 EDT, 31 March 2017 | UPDATED: 07:20 EDT, 31 March 2017
WikiLeaks has published hundreds more files today which it claims show the CIA went to great lengths to disguise its own hacking attacks and point the finger at Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
The 676 files released today are part of WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 tranche of files and they claim to give an insight into the CIA’s Marble software, which can forensically disguise viruses, trojans and hacking attacks.
WikiLeaks says the source code suggests Marble has test examples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi (the Iranian language).
In case you’re wondering, microwaves can’t take pictures of you. For starters, they don’t have cameras. But—and I can’t believe I’m writing this—Kellyanne Conway earlier this week was right to raise concerns about the security of “smart” devices connected to the Internet, even if it was an attempt to distract from President Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that President Obama had “wiretapped” Trump Tower.
Had Conway said she was worried about her dishwasher instead of her microwave, she might’ve been on to something. Back in 2012, a Wired headline read, “CIA Chief: We’ll Spy On You Through Your Dishwasher,” describing the clandestine agency’s very real plans to hack the “Internet of Things.” And as we now know, the CIA did find a way to turn Samsung “smart” TVs into covert listening devices.
In fact, the proliferation of Internet-connected devices with poor security is a major problem for at least a few reasons. First, they are indeed capable of exposing personal information—which is precisely why the CIA did it. The words we say in front of the TV are, to put it mildly, quite different from the words we would use on TV. And other “smart” home devices, from thermostats to baby monitors to Wi-Fi-enabled light bulbs, are also vulnerable to hacking.
Ridgewood NJ, yesterday, President Donald Trump claimed on twitter that former President Obama had his phones tapped during the 2016 presidential election. This revelation released a firestorm of accusations including the claim that if the wire tapping is true this will be a bigger scandal than Watergate.
After months of Democrat run media attacks on the President claiming Russian involvement in the 2016 election, no hard evidence has as of yet come to light to prove the accusations.
But the Obama wire taps on Trump are a totally different matter and this is what we know so far :
1, The Intelligence Community -at the direction of President Obama- made a request to a FISA court for the NSA to spy on Donald Trump in June 2016. It was denied.
2, In October the Intelligence Community (NSA) -at the direction of President Obama- made a second request to the FISA court for the NSA to spy on Donald Trump. It was approved.
3. At around the same time (October), as the second request to FISA, (Def Sec) Ash Carter and (DNI) James Clapper tell President Obama to dump NSA Director Mike Rogers.
4. A week after the election, Mike Rogers makes a trip to Trump Tower without telling his superior, James Clapper; which brings about new calls (November media leaks to WaPo) for President Obama to dump Mike Rogers.
5, According to the Executive Order rule changes DNI James Clapper signed off on December 15th.
6. General Michael Flynn spoke to the Russian Ambassador on December 29th
Dec 29th 2016 – Obama announces sanctions on Russia
7, VERY IMPORTANT January: Obama expands NSA sharing. As Michael Walsh later notes, and as the New York Times reports, the outgoing Obama administration “expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.” The new powers, and reduced protections, could make it easier for intelligence on private citizens to be circulated improperly or leaked.
8. Jan 3rd 2017 – Loretta Lynch signs off on rule changes for phone taps.
9. Jan 12th 2017 – WaPo reports On Phone Calls Anonymous Intel Sources
10. Jan 15th 2017 – VP Pence appears on Face the nation.
11. Jan 20th 2017 – Inauguration
12. Jan 23rd 2017 – FBI reports nothing unlawful in content of Flynn call
13. Jan 26th 2017 – Sally Yates (acting DOJ) informs President Trump there might be a conflict between VP Pence’s stated TV version (was told by Flynn), and what Intel community communicate to Yates that Flynn actually expressed to Russia.
14, Jan 27th 2017 – White House counsel begins investigation to discrepancy.
15 January: Times report. The New York Times reports, on the eve of Inauguration Day, that several agencies — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Treasury Department are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties.
Occam’s Razor. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers didn’t want to participate in the spying scheme (Clapper, Brennan, Etc.), which was the baseline for President Obama’s post presidency efforts to undermine Donald Trump and keep Trump from digging into the Obama labyrinth underlying his remaining loyalists. After the October spying operation went into effect, Rogers unknown loyalty was a risk to the Obama objective. 10 Days after the election Rogers travels to President-Elect Trump without notifying those who were involved in the intel scheme.
Did NSA Director Mike Rogers wait for a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) to be set up in Trump Tower, and then notify the President-elect he was being monitored by President Obama?
Here is my personal favorite, President Obama found his private moment of political candor caught by a live microphone on Monday as he told President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia that he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate on the delicate issue of missile defense after the November election. So what is really going on with the Democrats?
U.S. to disclose estimate of number of Americans under surveillance
By Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON
The U.S. intelligence community will soon disclose an estimate of the number of Americans whose electronic communications have been caught in the crosshairs of online surveillance programs intended for foreigners, U.S. lawmakers said in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.
The estimate, requested by members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, is expected to be made public as early as next month, the letter said.
Its disclosure would come as Congress is expected to begin debate in the coming months over whether to reauthorize or reform the so-called surveillance authority, known as Section 702, a provision that was added to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008.
“The timely production of this information is incredibly important to informed debate on Section 702 in the next Congress— and, without it, even those of us inclined to support reauthorization would have reason for concern,” said the letter signed by 11 lawmakers, all members of the House Judiciary Committee.
The FBI has been investigating Clinton for months—but an even more secretive Federal agency has its own important beef with her
By John R. Schindler • 03/18/16 8:45am
For a year now, Hillary Clinton’s misuse of email during her tenure as secretary of state has hung like a dark cloud over her presidential campaign. As I told youmonths ago, email-gate isn’t going away, despite the best efforts of Team Clinton to make it disappear. Instead, the scandal has gotten worse, with never-ending revelations of apparent misconduct by Ms. Clinton and her staff. At this point, email-gate may be the only thing standing between Ms. Clinton and the White House this November.
Specifically, the Federal Bureau of Investigation examination of email-gate, pursuant to provisions of the Espionage Act, poses a major threat to Ms. Clinton’s presidential aspirations. However, even if the FBI recommends prosecution of her or members of her inner circle for mishandling of classified information—which is something the politically unconnected routinely do face prosecution for—it’s by no means certain that the Department of Justice will follow the FBI’s lead.
A House panel on Wednesday announced it is opening an investigation into U.S. intelligence collection that may have swept up members of Congress.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s announcement of the probe comes after a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. collected information on private exchanges between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of Congress during ongoing negotiations for nuclear deal with Iran.
“The House Intelligence Committee is looking into allegations in the Wall Street Journal regarding possible Intelligence Community (IC) collection of communications between Israeli government officials and Members of Congress,” Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said in a statement. “The Committee has requested additional information from the IC to determine which, if any, of these allegations are true, and whether the IC followed all applicable laws, rules, and procedures.”
Customs and Border Patrol analyst Phil Haney tracked members of the Islamist Deobandi movement with which Sayed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were affiliated. But the Department of Homeland Security deleted the records, then disciplined and retaliated against him when he blew the whistle, he says.
Haney said he worked in Passenger Analysis Units at the Department of Homeland Security in Atlanta and at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center, where he performed research into people and groups that might be linked to terrorism. He identified members of al-Huda and Tablighi Jamaat, subgroups of the Deobandi Movement, a century-old fundamentalist Islamic group originating in Pakistan, as they traveled into and out of the United States. An association with Tablighi Jamaat has been documented by the French in an estimated80% of terrorism cases. Dar Al Uloom Mosque, frequented by Sayed Farook, is linked with the Deobandi Movement. Tashfeen Malik studied with Al-Huda in Pakistan.
Haney was given an agency award for his work identifying potential terrorists and he was asked to become part of the National Targeting Center, which works to connect the dots between radical figures and groups, he said. After more than six months tracking the Deobandi movement, Homeland Security halted the investigation at the urging of the State Department’s Office of Civil Rights, Haney said.
Why were Tashfeen Malik, and Syed Rizwan Farook not on any kind of a watch list ?
Evidence Continues to pile up that they were Radicalized for some time , where was the NSA, FBI, DHS and so on?
Welcome to America: New Photo Shows San Bernardino Terror Couple Entering US
By BRIAN ROSS
MATTHEW MOSK
MICHELE MCPHEE
MEGAN CHRISTIE
JOSH MARGOLIN
Dec 7, 2015, 6:55 AM ET
Federal officials around the world today are urgently trying to track the backgrounds and contacts of the newly-married parents of a baby girl who killed 14 people in California last week in a suspected ISIS-inspired attack, as a new photograph emerged showing the future terrorists entering the U.S. together for the first time last year.
The image, apparently taken as the couple moved through customs in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on July 27, 2014 and obtained exclusively by ABC News, shows Tashfeen Malik clad in all black looking directly into the camera as the taller Syed Rizwan Farook stands behind her, black bearded and with a blank expression. It is the most recent photograph of the two to be made public.
U.S. officials previously said that Farook, a U.S. citizen originally from Chicago, traveled to Saudi Arabia in July 2014 and returned less than two weeks later with Malik in tow. Malik, a Pakistani who officials said spent much of her life in Saudi Arabia, entered the U.S. on a so-called “fiancé” visa, which allowed Farook to petition for her entry ahead of marriage. The two were married in the eyes of U.S. law in California just a month after their arrival, although some officials have said they could have been married earlier abroad.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation has used a secretive authority to compel Internet and telecommunications firms to hand over customer data including an individual’s complete web browsing history and records of all online purchases, a court filing released Monday shows.
The documents are believed to be the first time the government has provided details of its so-called national security letters, which are used by the FBI to conduct electronic surveillance without the need for court approval.
The filing made public Monday was the result of an 11-year-old legal battle waged by Nicholas Merrill, founder of Calyx Internet Access, a hosted service provider, who refused to comply with a national security letter (NSL) he received in 2004.
Merrill told Reuters the release was significant “because the public deserves to know how the government is gathering information without warrants on Americans who are not even suspected of a crime.”
National security letters have been available as a law enforcement tool since the 1970s, but their frequency and breadth expanded dramatically under the USA Patriot Act, which was passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. They are almost always accompanied by an open-ended gag order barring companies from disclosing the contents of the demand for customer data.
A federal court ruled earlier this year that the gag on Merrill’s NSL should be lifted.
“A just-released inspector general report found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is conducting a massive consumer data-mining operation without the security safeguards to protect the sensitive data from cyberattacks.” Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah
10/13/2015 05:25 PM
Privacy: The most powerful unaccountable agency in Washington is mining and amassing all your personal financial data. While that’s bad enough, it also isn’t adequately protecting them from hackers and identity thieves.A just-released inspector general report found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is conducting a massive consumer data-mining operation without the security safeguards to protect the sensitive data from cyberattacks.
The CFPB is collecting and stockpiling more than 600 million credit card accounts, along with personal data from millions of mortgage loans, but “has not yet fully implemented a number of privacy control steps and information security practices,” warned CFPB Inspector General Mark Bialek in a 10-page memo to CFPB Director Richard Cordray.
More alarming, the agency is sharing the massive databases with outside contractors and storing sensitive private information on unsecured clouds, making the data extra vulnerable to cyberattacks “from outside governments and organized groups.”
American consumers have no idea that the government is doing this. They’re not being alerted about the sharing of data from their private financial accounts, and they’re not being given the right to opt out of the government programs to gather and retain their most sensitive personal information.
The Big Brother operation is being done surreptitiously, with the reluctant cooperation of banks. It’s an unprecedented invasion of privacy, even for the feds — and the Obama administration has no good answers for why it’s amassing this information on private citizens.
In a recent House banking committee hearing, Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, tried to get answers from Cordray, who explained, unconvincingly, “I’m just looking at overall patterns in the market.”
Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: https://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/101315-775415-ig-warns-cfpb-not-protecting-millions-credit-card-accounts-from-hackers.htm#ixzz3p7Gh92F8
“This administration views the Internet as a threat.” Senator Ted Cruz
Oct. 19, 2015 9:57pm Oliver Darcy
Ted Cruz said Sunday evening that the “threats to Internet freedom” have “never been greater” and could have the potential of affecting independent online news outlets like the Drudge Report.
Speaking to TheBlaze Sunday evening in Dallas, Texas, the Republican presidential candidate respondedto reports that Congressional review of digital copyright law could threaten aggregator news websites.
“I think threats to Internet freedom continue growing,” Cruz said. “This administration views the Internet as a threat.”
The head of the National Security Agency told a Senate Committee on Thursday that Hillary Clinton’s former email setup would be an “opportunity” for the U.S. if it had been used by a top foreign diplomat.
“From a foreign intelligence perspective, that would represent opportunity,” Adm. Michael Rogers testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The server would be a “top priority for foreign intelligence services,” Rogers agreed in response to a question from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
The comments are only likely to deepen the political trouble for Clinton, the former secretary of State whose “home-brew” email setup has threatened to engulf her campaign for the White House.
Critics have long feared that Clinton’s decision to go outside of the State Department’s normal email protocol posed a security risk to the nation by making it easier for foreign spies to crack into her messages and steal potentially crucial diplomatic secrets. Those concerns have only been compounded by revelations that some of the information contained in her emails is now classified.
Rogers said he had “no knowledge” of whether or not NSA officials’ emails were contained among the tens of thousands of work-related messages on Clinton’s personal server, or if any NSA officials were aware of her personal server.
The intelligence chief repeatedly attempted to dodge questions about the email setup on Thursday, clearly aiming to stay above the political fray.
Homeland Security admits Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act raises concerns while corporations and data brokers lobby for bill as it returns to Senate
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday said a controversial new surveillance bill could sweep away “important privacy protections”, a move that bodes ill for the measure’s return to the floor of the Senate this week.
The latest in a series of failed attempts to reform cybersecurity, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa) grants broad latitude to tech companies, data brokers and anyone with a web-based data collection to mine user information and then share it with “appropriate Federal entities”, which themselves then have permission to share it throughout the government.
Minnesota senator Al Franken queried the DHS in July; deputy secretary of the department Alejandro Mayorkas responded today that some provisions of the bill “could sweep away important privacy protections” and that the proposed legislation “raises privacy and civil liberties concerns”.
Much of the attention on Cisa has been directed at companies such as Google, Facebook and Comcast, which have large hoards of internet user behavior. But arguably more important are data brokers. Among the groups lobbying for the passage of Cisa are Experian, which tracks consumer trends using information from loyalty cards and other sources and licenses the information to help target advertising; Oracle, whose Data Cloud product works similarly; and Hitrust, which aggregates healthcare information.
The paragraph generating the most concern can be found in section 4 of the bill: “[a] private entity may, for cybersecurity purposes, monitor A) the information systems of such a private entity; B) the information systems of another entity, upon written consent of such other entity […] and D) information that is stored on, processed by, or transiting the information systems monitored by the private entity under this paragraph.”
Plenty more work to do toward reclaiming our lost liberties and protecting our privacy
Ronald Bailey|Jun. 5, 2015 9:09 am
Thanks to the whistleblowing of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden two years ago, the USA Freedom Act passed earlier this week reining in that agency’s massive domestic surveillance program. The program collected the metadata of practically all of the telephone calls that Americans make to each other. Metadata tells the agency to whom, when, where, and for how long you talked on your telephone. While government officials scaremongered that the program was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, they could point to not a single example how this program stopped any terrorist activity.
The American Civil Liberties Union is circulating a message from Snowden that makes these salient points …
… arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say. ….
Ending mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen. Yet while we have reformed this one program, many others remain.
We need to push back and challenge the lawmakers who defend these programs. We need to make it clear that a vote in favor of mass surveillance is a vote in favor of illegal and ineffective violations of the right to privacy for all Americans. …
We can’t take the right to privacy for granted, just like we can’t take the right to free speech for granted. We can’t let these invasions of our rights stand.
The ACLU adds:
While USA Freedom Act is a start, no one should mistake it for comprehensive reform – it leaves many of the government’s most intrusive surveillance powers untouched, and it leaves disclosure and transparency loopholes
