[governance] Blarney... it just keeps on coming...
Riaz K Tayob
riaz.tayob at gmail.com
Thu Jun 13 18:00:18 EDT 2013
[And concerns about corporates (who get 70% of theintelligence community
spend from govt) in multistakeholder processes is not a problem? After
this will we be allowed to have a reasoned discussion on this "soft
facism"...?]
The Massive Online Surveillance Program No One Is Talking About
<http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/10/2133201/blarney-online-surveillance/>
By Andrea Peterson <http://thinkprogress.org/author/apeterson/> on Jun
10, 2013 at 8:25 pm
<http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/new-prism-slide-0011.jpg>
Slide referencing BLARNEY as an upstream data collection option (Credit:
The Guardian)
Much of the initial coverage of last week's leaks about the National
Security Agency (NSA) online snooping focused on a content gathering
program called PRISM. But buried in the Washington Post's original
coverage were a few tantalizing details about another program code-named
BLARNEY that bears a striking resemblance to the one alleged in a
prominent court case over the existence of a dragnet online surveillance
program.
The details of the BLARNEY program revealed so far appear to closely
match the testimony and documents of former AT&T employee and
whistleblower Mark Klein. Klein worked at AT&T for twenty-two years,
retiring in 2004. During that time, he has testified
<https://www.eff.org/node/55051> he witnessed the installation of a
fiber-optic splitting device in the San Francisco office where he
worked, with a copy of all data being diverted
<https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/presskit/ATT_onepager.pdf> to a
room controlled by the NSA. In that room was "powerful computer
equipment connecting to separate networks" and with the capability to
"analyze communications at high speed." As part of his testimony, he
also provided AT&T documents that included diagrams of the splitter
technology used.
In a conversation with ThinkProgress, Cindy Cohn, Legal Director with
the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which is litigating the /Jewel
v. NSA/ case, agreed BLARNEY "appears to be what we've been saying, and
what Mark Klein's evidence shows."
According the Washington Post
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_print.html>,
BLARNEY gathers up metadata from choke points along the backbone of the
Internet as part of "an ongoing collection program that leverages IC
[intelligence community] and commercial partnerships to gain access and
exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks." A slide
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server-collection-facebook-google>
later revealed by The Guardian lists the program as an upstream option
for data collection, which relies on sucking up information "on fiber
cables and infrastructure as it flows past." From those descriptions, it
sounds somewhat analogous to an internet version of the broad telephone
metadata collection authorized in the Verizon
<http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/06/06/2111741/what-you-should-know-about-the-governments-massive-domestic-surveillance-program/>
order revealed last week, which some electronic privacy advocates
believes oversteps the authority
<http://epic.org/FISC-NSA-domestic-surveillance.pdf> of Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts.
Klein's testimony and documents form the basis of the ongoing /Jewel v.
NSA/ <https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel>court case originally filed in
2008, which alleges
<https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/jewel/jewel.complaint.pdf> "an
illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet communications
surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (the 'N.S.A.')
and other defendants in concert with major telecommunications
companies." A similar case against the telecommunications company,
Hepting v. AT&T
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting_vs._AT%26T#cite_note-eff-1>, was
dismissed following the passage of retroactive immunity for telecom
companies in the 2008 renewal of the FISA.
Three former NSA intelligence analysts, William E. Binney, Thomas A.
Drake and J. Kirk Wiebe have also backed the /Jewel/ case
<https://www.eff.org/press/releases/three-nsa-whistleblowers-back-effs-lawsuit-over-governments-massive-spying-program>,
saying the NSA either has, or is in the process of obtaining, the
ability to seize and store most electronic communications passing
through its U.S. intercept centers like "secret room" described by Klein.
The Obama administration moved to dismiss the /Jewel /case in 2009,
invoking the "state secrets" privilege and saying that it was immune
from the suit. It was instead dismissed on standing grounds, but the 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it could proceed to district
court in December 2011. In September 2012 the government again renewed
it's state secret argument. Last Friday the government responded to the
NSA leaks
<http://ia700508.us.archive.org/10/items/gov.uscourts.cand.207206/gov.uscourts.cand.207206.142.0.pdf>
by requesting delay on any decisions on pending motions until it can
file a new status report taking newly public information into account.
June 13, 2013
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/13/the-nsa-and-the-infrastructure-of-the-surveillance-state/print>
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In Search of Real Liberty
The NSA and the Infrastructure of the Surveillance State
by ERIC DRAITSER
It has long been known that cyberspace is one of the main battlegrounds
in the 21^st century. However, last week's shocking revelations about
the NSA's surveillance and data-gathering activities illustrate the
extent to which US intelligence seeks "full-spectrum dominance" in
cyberspace.
Although there have been myriad articles in recent days about the
various aspects of the NSA surveillance story, none seem to focus on the
fact that US intelligence effectively has access to all data
transmitted, not just that on Verizon or Google servers. Essentially,
the intelligence community -- a convenient euphemism for that complex
that includes private contractors and government agencies -- acts much
like a filter, sifting and straining all information through its various
systems. However, it is important to realize that the system that the
government has established is an all-encompassing one, including access
to data in company servers in addition to access to the cable and
fiber-optic infrastructure that actually transmits the data.
On the one hand, there is the PRISM system which, as the Washington Post
reported
<http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-06/news/39784046_1_prism-nsa-u-s-servers>,
allows "The National Security Agency and the FBI [to tap] directly into
the central servers of nine leading U.S. internet companies, extracting
audio and video chats, photographs, emails, documents, and connection
logs." Aside from being a blatant violation of the 4^th Amendment of the
US Constitution, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights,
and countless other international standards, the program has been
vigorously defended by Obama Administration officials who, like their
predecessors in the Bush Administration, invoke the always convenient
"National Security" trump card to justify their illegal actions.
The PRISM system should be understood as a collusion between the NSA and
major internet companies against the interests of ordinary Americans.
Because the PRISM system is justified as being used solely to "target
and track foreign targets," somehow American citizens are supposed to
feel at ease. It is important to note that PRISM makes use of obviously
illegal tactics which "circumvent formal legal processes...to seek
personal material such as emails, photos and videos." This is the crux
of the PRISM aspect of this scandal: it is blatantly illegal.
If PRISM were the only system being used by the government agencies,
then the story would not be nearly as frightening as it is. Instead, we
must also examine the so-called BLARNEY system which "Gathers up
metadata from choke points along the backbone of the internet as part of
an ongoing collection program the leverages IC (intelligence community)
and commercial partnerships to gain access and exploit foreign
intelligence obtained from global networks." This system allows the NSA
(and likely other government agencies) to control the flow of all
information transmitted via fiber-optic cables.
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in its summary
<https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/presskit/ATT_onepager.pdf> of
the testimonies of former AT&T technician Mark Klein and former Senior
Advisor for Internet Technology at the FCC Scott Marcus, "Using a device
called a 'splitter' a complete copy of the internet traffic that AT&T
receives...is diverted onto a separate fiber-optic cable which is
connected to a room which is controlled by the NSA." Therefore, unlike
PRISM, which the government and its apologists attempt to justify as
being used to target key individuals, BLARNEY has no such capacity.
Rather, it is designed solely to collect data, all internet data, to be
used and likely stored.
Naturally, the revelations about the BLARNEY system shed light on the
possible motivations of the NSA for the construction of enormous data
storage facilities such as the Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah. As
reported in Wired
<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/> magazine:
But "this is more than just a data center," says one senior
intelligence official who until recently was involved with the
program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important
and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed...
According to another top official also involved with the program,
the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its
ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption
systems employed by not only governments around the world but also
many average computer users in the US. The upshot, according to this
official: "Everybody's a target; everybody with communication is a
target."
This facility, along with others that likely exist but remain secret, is
an integral part of the surveillance state system. It is not enough to
simply capture all the communications data, it must be stored and
readily available. What the NSA primarily, and other agencies
secondarily, are doing is developing a cyber-infrastructure that both
incorporates, and is independent of, internet companies and service
providers. While relying on corporations' for access to data and
networks, the NSA simultaneously has developed a parallel structure for
information gathering and storage that is not only outside the control
of private companies, it is outside the law.
Of course, there are many political and economic factors that play into
this issue. The legal framework developed in the post-9/11 era including
draconian legislation such as the PATRIOT Act, the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA), and many others, laid the foundation for the
systemic and systematic stripping away of civil liberties and human
rights. The technical infrastructure has been steadily evolving since
9/11 as technology continues to improve, providing the intelligence
agencies with ever more tools for surveillance and intelligence
gathering. The continued, unrestrained neoliberal policy of
privatization has created a complex network of companies, contractors,
and subcontractors, usually working independently of each other, all in
the service of the security state. Finally, the political landscape in
the United States has so thoroughly devolved that elected officials are
more concerned about stopping the whistleblowers and leakers, than about
addressing America's continued descent into a fascist police state.
Despite all of this, Americans continue to be told that this is the
"sweet land of liberty". We may be able to buy Nike sneakers and flat
screen TVs, but that's not liberty. We may be able to tweet with our
iPhones and download our favorite movies, but that's not liberty either.
Rather, as George Orwell famously wrote, "If liberty means anything at
all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
So yes, tell the people what they don't want to hear. Just know
this...someone will be listening.
/*Eric Draitser* is the founder of StopImperialism.com
<http://www.StopImperialism.com>. He is an independent geopolitical
analyst based in New York City. You can reach him at
ericdraitser at gmail.com./
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