Hasta La Gadget!

The NSA’s been rather busy over the past few years, tracking everything from your emails to phone calls, and now the New York Times is reporting that it even conducted a secret project to collect data about the location of American’s cellphones in 2010 and 2011. The project was ultimately not implemented and only recently surfaced in a pre-written answer for the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper, should the subject come up in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. According to the Times, details about the project are scarce, and Senator Ron Wyden said that “the real story” behind the project has yet to be declassified. The answer obtained by the paper reads:

“In 2010 and 2011 N.S.A. received samples in order to test the ability of its systems to handle the data format, but that data was not used for any other purpose and was never available for intelligence analysis purposes.”

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Source: New York Times

Today brings another victory for transparency as the US government has just declassified three documents pursuant to the collection of telephonic metadata authorized by section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. The documents, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, include the 2009 and 2011 reports concerning the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act as well as the order for business record collection. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the subject, NSA Deputy Director John Inglis made public for the first time the mechanism for accessing the metadata at the government’s disposal. According to Inglis, telephonic information — which does not include names, addresses, or social security numbers — exists in databases but cannot be accessed without reasonable suspicion of association with terrorists. Deputy Attorney General James Cole went on to say, “Nobody is listening to anybody’s conversations.” This revelation might be cold comfort to those concerned about the government’s ownership of this data to begin with, but it does pull back the curtain somewhat on the NSA’s policies and procedures. To read these declassified — and heavily redacted — documents in full, head on over to the source link below.

Filed under: Misc

Comments

Source: Office of the Director of National Intelligence

The United States government’s controversial data collection practices reportedly helped thwart plots to bomb the New York City subway system and New York Stock Exchange, Federal Bureau of Investigation deputy director Sean Joyce said during a House Intelligence Committee hearing this morning in Washington, DC. Information from the programs — one focused on phone networks and another on the internet — was also said to serve a role in stopping a separate bombing threat at Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in Denmark, which ran a cartoon depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

National Security Agency director Keith Alexander added that, “50 terror threats in 20 countries” were stopped as a result of the controversial information gathering practices. “I would much rather be here today debating this than explaining why we were unable to prevent another 9/11” attack,” he said. When asked if the NSA is technologically capable of “flipping a switch” and listening in on Americans (whether by phone or internet), Alexander flatly answered, “no.”

Update: According to a Wired report, the man named during today’s hearing in connection with the New York Stock Exchange bombing, Khalid Ouazzani, wasn’t convicted of anything regarding the NYSE. Rather, his plea cites various money laundering in connection with terrorists, and his lawyer said, “Khalid Ouazzani was hot involved in any plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.”

Filed under: Internet, Software

Comments

Source: Reuters

The NSA director, General Keith Alexander, is coming under scrutiny after he told a crowd gathered at the Def Con hacker conference that the spy agency “absolutely” does not collect data from and maintain files on American citizens. A former official stopped just shy of calling Alexander a liar, accusing him of playing a “word game.” William Binney left the department in late 2001, when it became apparent to him that it planned to use the terrorist attacks on September 11th as an “excuse” to launch a data collection program that was already in the planning stages. Alexander for his part maintains that any data, be it web searches, Twitter posts or emails, collected from American citizens is merely incidental, and associated with intelligence gathering on foreign entities.

Of course, Binney rejects this claim and testimony from Qwest CEO James Nacchio regarding the NSA’s wiretapping program would seem to contradict it. ACLU attorney Alex Abdo, who was on the panel with Alexander, cast further doubt on the director’s denial. He noted that loopholes in the law allow the NSA collect vast amounts of information on Americans, without them being the “target” of the surveillance. Since the agency can hold on to any data collected, it can retroactively build dossiers on citizens, should they eventually become the focus of an investigation. For a few more details, hit up the source link.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Former NSA official says agency collects Americans’ web data, director denies charges originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Wired  | Email this | Comments