[governance] Government Spying on Americans … and then Giving Info to Giant Corporations

[Riaz K Tayob]

[The Great Cummupence... And it is the state that is bad, not the 
intimate relations between private corporations and the USG... what 
implications for MS?]


  Government Spying on Americans … and then Giving Info to Giant
  Corporations

Posted on June 11, 2013 
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/government-spying-on-americans-and-then-giving-info-to-giant-corporations.html> 
by WashingtonsBlog <http://www.washingtonsblog.com/author/washingtonsblog>


      Big Banks and Other Corporate Bigwigs Benefit from Illegal Spying

You’ve heard that the government spies on all Americans.

But you might not know that the government shares some of that 
information with big corporations.

In addition, Reuters reported 
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/26/us-cybersecurity-banks-idUSTRE79P5E020111026> 
in 2011 that the NSA shares intelligence with Wall Street banks in the 
name of “battling hackers.”

    The National Security Agency, a secretive arm of the U.S. military,
    has begun providing Wall Street banks with intelligence on foreign
    hackers, a sign of growing U.S. fears of financial sabotage.The
    assistance from the agency that conducts electronic spying overseas
    is part of an effort by American banks and other financial firms to
    get help from the U.S. military and private defense contractors to
    fend off cyber attacks, according to interviews with U.S. officials,
    security experts and defense industry executives.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also warned banks of
    particular threats amid concerns that hackers could potentially
    exploit security vulnerabilities to wreak havoc across global
    markets and cause economic mayhem.

    ***

    NSA Director Keith Alexander, who runs the U.S. military’s cyber
    operations, told Reuters the agency is currently talking to
    financial firms about sharing electronic information on malicious
    software, possibly by expanding a pilot program through which *it
    offers similar data to the defense industry*.

    ***

    NSA, which has long been charged with protecting classified
    government networks from attack, is already working with Nasdaq to
    beef up its defenses after hackers infiltrated its computer systems
    last year and installed malicious software that allowed them to spy
    on the directors of publicly held companies.

    ***

    The NSA’s work with Wall Street marks a milestone in the agency’s
    efforts to *make its cyber intelligence available more broadly to
    the private sector*.

    ***

    Greater cooperation with industry became possible after a deal
    reached a year ago between the Pentagon and the Department of
    Homeland Security, *allowing NSA to provide cyber expertise to*
    other government agencies and *certain private companies*.

In March, PC Magazine noted 
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417197,00.asp>:

    “Right now, the ability to share real-time information is
    complicated and there are legal barriers. We have to overcome that,”
    Gen Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and
    commander of U.S. Cyber Command, said during a Thursday appearance
    at Georgia Tech’s Cyber Security Symposium.

    [Alexander has been pushing for the  anti-privacy Internet bill
    known as "CISPA
    <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/04/us-house-representatives-shamefully-passes-cispa-internet-freedom-advocates>"
    to be passed.] “It allows the government to start working with
    industry and … discuss with each of these sector about the best
    approach,” he said.

CISPA would allow the NSA to more openly share data with corporations in 
the name of protecting against “cyber threats.” But that phrase is too 
squisy.  As the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes: 
<https://www.eff.org/cybersecurity-bill-faq#agencies>

    A “cybersecurity purpose” only means that a company has to think
    that a user is trying to harm its network. What does that mean,
    exactly? The definition is broad and vague. The definition allows
    purposes such as guarding against “improper” information
    modification, ensuring “timely” access to information or “preserving
    authorized restrictions on access…protecting…proprietary
    information” (i.e. DRM).

Moreover,  as the ACLU notes 
<http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusioncenter_20071212.pdf>, 
“Fusion Centers” – a hybrid of military, intelligence agency, police and 
private corporations set up in centers throughout the country 
<http://www.aclu.org/node/20415/>, and run by the Department of Justice 
and Department of Homeland Security – allow big businesses like Boeing 
to get access to classified information which gives them an /unfair 
advantage/ over smaller competitors:

    Participation in fusion centers might give Boeing access to the
    trade secrets or security vulnerabilities of competing companies, or
    might give it an advantage in competing for government contracts.
    Expecting a Boeing analyst to distinguish between information that
    represents a security risk to Boeing and information that represents
    a business risk may be too much to ask.

A 2008 Department of Homeland Security Privacy Office review 
<http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_ia_slrfci.pdf> 
of fusion centers concluded that they presented risks to privacy because 
of ambiguous lines of authority, rules and oversight, the participation 
of the military and /*private sector*/, data mining, excessive secrecy, 
inaccurate or incomplete information and the dangers of mission creep.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found 
<http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/02/14187433-homeland-security-fusion-centers-spy-on-citizens-produce-shoddy-work-report-says?lite> 
in 2012 that fusion centers spy on citizens, produce ‘shoddy’ work 
unrelated to terrorism or real threats:

    “The Subcommittee investigation found that DHS-assigned detailees to
    the fusion centers forwarded ‘intelligence’ of uneven quality –
    oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens’
    civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from
    already-published public sources, and *more often than not unrelated
    to terrorism*.”

Under the FBI’s Infraguard program, businesses sometimes receive intel 
even /before/ elected officials 
<http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/3-infragard-the-fbi-deputizes-business/>.

Law enforcement agencies spy on protesters and then share the info – at 
taxpayer expense 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/18/wall-street-firms-spy-on-protestors-in-tax-funded-center/> 
– with the giant Wall Street banks

And a security expert says that all Occupy Wall Street protesters had 
their cellphone information logged by the government 
<http://www.salon.com/2013/06/06/security_expert_all_occupiers_phones_were_logged/>.

Alternet notes 
<http://www.alternet.org/how-our-massive-homeland-security-apparatus-does-bidding-big-banks>:

    Ironically, records indicate that corporate entities engaged in such
    public-private intelligence sharing partnerships were often the very
    same corporate entities criticized, and protested against, by the
    Occupy Wall Street movement as having undue influence in the
    functions of public government.

In essence, big banks and giant corporations are seen as being part of 
“critical infrastructure” and “key resources 
<http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/nipp_srtltt_guide.pdf>” … so the 
government protects them.  That creates a dynamic where the government 
will do quite a bit to protect the big boys against any real or imagined 
threats … whether from activists or even smaller competitors. (Remember 
that the government has completely propped up the big banks 
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/02/virtually-all-of-the-big-banks-profits-come-from-taxpayer-bailouts-and-subsidies.html>, 
even though they went bankrupt due to stupid gambles 
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/01/12-of-the-13-big-banks-went-bust-and-the-government-lied-when-it-said-it-only-bailed-out-healthy-banks.html>.)

And given that some millions of private contractors 
<http://abcnews.go.com/US/secret-history-nsa-contractors/story?id=19366914&singlePage=true#.UbZz79h32Sp> 
have clearance to view information gathered by spy agencies, and that 
information gained by the NSA by spying on Americans is being shared 
with agencies in other countries 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jun/07/uk-gathering-secret-intelligence-nsa-prism>, 
at least some of the confidential information is undoubtedly leaking 
into private hands /even without/ the government’s knowledge or consent.

As the ACLU noted 
<http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/surveillance_report.pdf> in 2004:

    There is a long and unfortunate history of cooperation between
    government security agencies and powerful corporations to deprive
    individuals of their privacy and other civil liberties, and any
    program that institutionalizes close, secretive ties between such
    organizations raises serious questions about the scope of its
    activities, now and in the future.

Indeed, the government has been affirmatively helping the big banks, 
giant oil companies and other large corporations cover up fraud 
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/04/japans-nuclear-melt-down-economic.html> 
and to go after critics.  For example, Business Week reported 
<http://web.archive.org/web/20060615163032/http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2006/nf20060523_2210.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily>on 
May 23, 2006:

    President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John
    Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to
    excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and
    securities-disclosure obligations.

Reuters noted <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60N1S220100124> in 
2010:

    U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Federal
    Reserve’s bid to keep secret many of the details of the American
    International Group bailout like a request to protect matters of
    national security, according to emails obtained by Reuters.

Wired reported <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/foia-filtered/> 
the same year:

    The DHS issued a directive to employees in July 2009 requiring a
    wide range of public records requests to pass through political
    appointees for vetting. These included any requests dealing with a
    “controversial or sensitive subject” or pertaining to meetings
    involving *prominent business leaders* and elected officials.
    Requests from lawmakers, journalists, and activist and watchdog
    groups were also placed under this scrutiny.

In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks 
expose of wrongdoing – the Department of Justice told Bank of America 
<http://dailybail.com/home/how-attorney-general-eric-holder-colluded-with-bank-of-ameri.html> 
to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to 
take down WikiLeaks (and see this 
<http://www.salon.com/2011/02/15/hunton_williams_wikileaks_chamber/>)

The government and big banks actually coordinated on the violent 
crackdown 
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/government-and-big-banks-joined-forces-to-violently-crush-peaceful-protests.html> 
of the anti-big bank Occupy protest.

The government is also using anti-terrorism laws to keep people from 
learning what pollutants are in their own community, in order to protect 
the fracking, coal and other polluting industries. See this 
<http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/02/02/documentary-filmmaker-josh-fox-arrested-at-fracking-hearing>, 
this 
<http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity/breaking_in_private_email_pas_homeland_security_chief_pledges_support_to_gas_drillers_warns_against_groups_fomenting_dissent.html>, 
this <http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/09/post_122.html>, 
this 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/12/coal-ash-spills-too-dange_n_214739.html> 
and this 
<http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=bushs_secret_government>.

Investigating factory farming can get one labeled a terrorist 
<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-fbi-tracking-animal-videotapers-as-terrorists-20111229,0,5919114.story>.

Infringing the copyright of a big corporation may also get labeled as a 
terrorist … and a swat team may be deployed to your house.  See this 
<http://news.cnet.com/Terrorist-link-to-copyright-piracy-alleged/2100-1028_3-5722835.html>, 
this 
<http://techliberation.com/2007/01/17/swat-teams-enforcing-copyright/>, 
this 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_invocations_of_the_USA_PATRIOT_Act#Investigating_copyright_infringement> 
and this <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100129/0630057974.shtml>.  
As the executive director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law 
School notes 
<http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/enough-already-the-sopa-debate-ignores-how-much-copyright-protection-we-already-have/252742/#bio>:

    This administration … publishes a newsletter about its efforts with
    language that compares copyright infringement to terrorism.

In short, the “national security” apparatus has been hijacked to serve 
the needs of big business 
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/09/the-national-security-apparatus-has-been-hijacked-to-serve-the-needs-of-big-business.html>

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