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American Government Super Secret Surveillance Program

US security agencies tapping directly into internet giants' servers: report - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The man responsible for shaking the grounds of the American government.

Hong Kong 'not a safe harbour' for U.S. surveillance whistleblower - World - CBC News

Basically the American government is caught red handed intercepting phone calls, emails, chat logs, webcams etc.

The whistleblower chose the wrong destination as a safe haven. LOL

maybe he just wants some sex141 before he dies.

We'll see his name soon in another news heading but it will be something like; "Man found dead in Hong Kong hotel"

Just saw on the news that he checked out of the hotel and hasn't been seen since. I wonder if it was forced or not.

Don't forget the Canadian counterpart!
Data-collection program got green light from MacKay in 2011 - The Globe and Mail

Quote:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay approved a secret electronic eavesdropping program that scours global telephone records and Internet data trails – including those of Canadians – for patterns of suspicious activity.

Mr. MacKay signed a ministerial directive formally renewing the government’s “metadata” surveillance program on Nov. 21, 2011, according to records obtained by The Globe and Mail. The program had been placed on a lengthy hiatus, according to the documents, after a federal watchdog agency raised concerns that it could lead to warrantless surveillance of Canadians.

There is little public information about the program, which is the subject of Access to Information requests that have returned hundreds of pages of records, with many passages blacked out on grounds of national security.

It was first explicitly approved in a secret decree signed in 2005 by Bill Graham, defence minister in Paul Martin’s Liberal government.

It is illegal for most Western espionage agencies to spy on their citizens without judicial authorization. But rising fears about foreign terrorist networks, coupled with the explosion of digital communications, have shifted the mandates of secretive electronic-eavesdropping agencies that were created by military bureaucracies to spy on Soviet states during the Cold War.

The Canadian surveillance program is operated by the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), an arm of the Department of National Defence.

In recent days, disclosures of secret surveillance programs operated by the U.S. National Security Agency have set off a storm of debate. Leaked documents and accounts have described an NSA project known as PRISM that allegedly gives the agency access to data from nine U.S. Internet companies including Google and Facebook. Another leaked document describes the existence of a government program that collects the “telephony metadata” surrounding millions of phone calls placed by Americans every day, without anyone listening to the actual conversations.

In Canada, a similar sensibility – though not the same sweep – appears to have also taken root. “Metadata is information associated with a telecommunication … And not a communication,” reads a PowerPoint briefing sent to Mr. MacKay in 2011. “Current privacy protection measures are adequate,” officials said, as they sought renewal of the Canadian metadata program.

CSEC and the NSA take pains to distinguish between the contents of a communication (which is out of bounds legally, if it involves a citizen) and the surrounding metadata (which is considered in play).

Mining metadata may never reveal what is said. But phone records, Internet Protocol addresses, and other data trails can reveal who knows whom, and how well. Authorities who suck up signals on a vast scale can use the metadata to create pictures of social networks, even terrorist cells, if they armed with enough raw computing power to sift through gigantic pools of data.

In Canada, a regime of ministerial directives – decrees not scrutinized by Parliament – have authorized the broad surveillance programs. How the data is obtained has not been disclosed in the documents obtained by The Globe or in comments from CSEC.

Officials do say that CSEC “incidentally” intercepts Canadian communications, but takes pain to purge or “anonymize” such data after it is obtained. Beyond that, “metadata is used to isolate and identify foreign communications, as CSEC is prohibited by law from directing its activities at Canadians,” wrote spokesman Ryan Foreman in an e-mail to The Globe.

CSEC is subject to oversight by a watchdog agency known as the Office of the CSE Commissioner, which has given broad approval to the metadata-mining program.

Five years ago, however, Justice Charles Gonthier, a retired Supreme Court judge, raised questions about the practice, according to government records released to The Globe.

Could CSEC, he asked, be wrongly passing along information to partner agencies, such as the RCMP or CSIS? While raw intelligence is sometimes allowed to pass between these agencies, Justice Gonthier’s broad concern was that CSEC’s metadata-mining efforts could be used as an end run around lawful warrants.

He wrote in a 2008 memo that ironing out such rules was important, since they set up “the legal requirement (e.g. ministerial authorization vs. a court warrant) in cases where activities may be ‘directed at’ a Canadian.”

CSEC suspended its metadata-mining program for more than a year in 2008. The documents show that Mr. MacKay signed a new ministerial directive in 2011 to continue the surveillance under new rules – and also authorized other espionage programs, some of which have been completely censored from the Access to Information documents obtained by The Globe.

what we all suspected all along and theres absolutely nothing you can do about it...

The only way to protect yourself from being eavesdropped is to use a reputable VPN that doesn't keep any logs like Astrill and PrivateInternetAccess.

awaiting CiC to post :)

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...-large-001.jpg

Map that shows which countries are being monitored. Red is heavy monitoring, green is less.

He decides to hide in the mandarin oriental instead of Chungking mansion. :fulloffuck: :lawl:

From Reddit

Quote:

I have nothing to hide. I don't break the law, I don't write hate e-mails, I don't participate in any terrorist organizations and I certainly don't leak secret information to other countries/terrorists. The most the government will get out of reading my e-mails is that I went to see Now You See It last week and I'm excited the Blackhawks are kicking ass. If the government is able to find, hunt down, and stop a terrorist from blowing up my office building in downtown Chicago, I'm all for them reading whatever they can get their hands on. For my safety and for the safety of others so hundreds of innocent people don't have to die, please read my e-mails

And a response on why you should care about our privacy.

Spoiler!

Source - I believe the government should be allowed to view my e-mails, tap my phone calls, and view my web history for national security concerns. CMV : changemyview

My thoughts when this first broke is...didn't we already know?

Like, there are stories of monitoring stations being right next to where the international cable comes on shore.

So, if you have a system that can check and monitor just that part...then its not a big leap to say you can do it all.

Plus...this came out that Bush instituted warrantless wiretapping.

So the 'new' revelation is the computer component. Well, no shit. I'd be curious what the actual access to servers looks like. I can't imagine that facebook just gets pulled aside when they get big enough and are told the truth about being a player in silicon valley.

If that's the case, then as a terrorist, I'm going to set up my own server to use for all my illicit communicating.

I suspect its more tapping in along the way to view whats happening. And if that's the case, I'd really love to see the technology that goes into this.

Let's also remember, the internet was a US gov't project. Everyone thinks that they are so dumb. Dude...Al Gore built the fucking thing with his own two hands :)

Yes our stuff is being anazlyed, and yet they still fail to stop terrorist attacks in US, obviously there failing and our privacy is gone.

Hmmm I first heard about the NSA when I read Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. Came out back in '98 but still worth the read if you're into those kind of novels.

He didnt choose a bad place at all HK seems like a great choice

what's hilarious though is that American networks twisted the fact that he was in Hong Kong into him being a traitor and running to the Chinese Govt. to spill his secrets to them :fulloffuck: instead of focusing on what he revealed

Shit like this would end up causing riots in Europe/Middle East/Asia but of course in North America they don't give a shit as long as they have a big mac to shove down their throats and guns to buy (more so in USA of course)

Ultimately, you can say that a great many things are done in the name of national security. It wasn't that long ago that Jews were executed in the name of national security.

You can spend these billions upon billions of dollars building better ways of scanning and coding and filing away data and at the end of the day the nation you are securing is gone. The concept of privacy is forgotten. And the thing of it is, when something like this exists, its so easy to push the boundaries further and further.

Fuck, I get so angry at people. They wrap this into a Bush vs. Obama argument. Or a republican vs. democrat argument. Dammit man, its not! This is a US government argument. One party after another has looked at this, one senator after another. President after president signing away on more and more laws that combine together to capture more information, and read through more data.

It's gone beyond an issue you can vote on.

It's become part of the country.

You are afraid. And more and more because of gentlemen named "Snowden" and "Manning" you are getting to understand what lengths people are going to because of it.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ba0cc80eec/nsa-wiretapping-public-service-announcement?playlist=featured_videos
Funny or Die's answer to the problem

for all his bluster of hope and change, obama is turning into black bush. executing american citizens overseas, wiretapping...its a brave new world we live in unfortunately

Not enough sex for a Brave New World. But it is a very interesting hybrid of Huxley's and Orwell's visions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graeme S (Post 8259212)

Not enough sex for a Brave New World. But it is a very interesting hybrid of Huxley's and Orwell's visions.

what i dont understand is that in the 60s/70s the younger generation was much less politically apathetic and more inclined to question authority and practice civil disobedience

what happened? it seems nowadays, obedience and subservience is rewarded and cherised as values of a good citizen (or kid)

i can see why the gov't is so vehemently against drugs and other such substances, an educated nation with a expanded consciousness is dangerous to the status quo

Serious question here -- why are people so upset when their email and online activities get eavesdropped and analyzed by some computer algorithm? Undoubtedly, people's privacy are being violated (albeit merely by computer programs), and I am not saying that is a good thing at all. But when the goal of such electronic monitoring is to catch terrorists, I am a little more ok with the means.

The single most important points that I see here is -- would we rather see more of the Boston marathon bombing stuff happening? or would we rather give up a little bit of our personal privacy if it means terrorists ploys (esp small scale and distributed ones like the Boston bombing) could be more effectively thwarted?

As long as the following 2 conditions are followed:

1) the collected data gets wiped after they are deemed to be irrelevant, and
2) the collected data only gets used for counter-terrorism purposes

I would reluctantly put up with the background computer analysis.

I'm surprised this video hasn't been posted yet. But for those that are questioning why it's OK for the government to spy on us withour legal consent need to watch the video on why Snowden decided to give up his 300K/year job and living in Hawaii for the people.

Big props to the guy. He couldn't have said it any better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Traum (Post 8259250)

People like you are scum and do not deserve to live in a democratic society.

Canada and usa are founded on the fundamental ideals of justice liberty and equality. No matter the method, any violation of these ideals are unjust.

Its an old cliche but those who sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither
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