Snowden leaves neutral confines of Moscow airport, enters Russia

Edward Snowden has finally escaped his month-long Moscow airport purgatory and arrived in Russian territory, according to the Associated Press. The NSA whistleblower had already been granted temporary asylum by the Putin-led government after Bolivia and Venezuela also offered to take the fugitive, and was awaiting paperwork in order to leave Sheremetyevo Airport. The NSA’s arch-enemy will be granted a year’s stay, according to his Russian lawyer, and will be able to re-apply to remain after that. Now that his Russian residency has been established, most press outlets expect a strong reaction from the US government after it assured Moscow that Snowden wouldn’t face the death penalty if deported. For its part, Russia said it has no intention of handing over the man who blew the lid off the pervasive PRISM monitoring program.

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Source: AP (Twitter), WSJ

Yes, The FBI Is Tracking American Google Searches

Yes, The FBI Is Tracking American Google Searches

Michele Catalano, a writer for Forbes, Boing Boing, and other publications, received a friendly visit from the FBI at her home today, which according to her Twitter profile is in Long Island, NY.

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The Guardian: NSA’s XKeyscore tool is its ‘widest reaching’ system for collecting online data

The Guardian NSA's XKeyscore tool is its 'widest reaching' system for collecting online data

Edward Snowden has said that he still has more information about the NSA than what he’s already leaked, and we’re now getting a look at another big piece of that. According to a new set of documents provided to The Guardian, the NSA is using a tool called XKeyscore that is said to be its “widest reaching” system for collecting information from the internet — one that lets it examine “nearly everything a typical user does on the internet,” as one presentation slide explains. That apparently includes both metadata and the contents of emails, as well as social media activity, which can reportedly be accessed by NSA analysts without prior authorization; as The Guardian notes, a FISA warrant is required if the target of the surveillance is a US citizen, but not if a foreign target is communicating with an American.

According to The Guardian, the amount of data collected is so large that content is only able to stored in the system for three to five days, or as little as 24 hours in some cases, while metadata is stored for 30 days. That’s reportedly led the NSA to develop a multi-tiered system that lets it move what’s described as “interesting” content to other databases where it can be stored for as much as five years. In a statement provided to The Guardian, the NSA says that “XKeyscore is used as a part of NSA’s lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system,” and that “allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true. Access to XKeyscore, as well as all of NSA’s analytic tools, is limited to only those personnel who require access for their assigned tasks.” The agency further adds that “every search by an NSA analyst is fully auditable, to ensure that they are proper and within the law.”

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Source: The Guardian, NSA

Washington Post: Russia may grant NSA leaker Edward Snowden formal entry

According to the Washington Post, Russia has decided to grant Edward Snowden permission to leave the Moscow airport. Though the NSA whistleblower has been offered asylum in Bolivia and Venezuela, he reportedly requested temporary asylum in the Eastern European country last week. While the Putin government didn’t approve Snowden’s application immediately, it’s refused to hand him over to the U.S. since he arrived in Shremetyevo airport from Hong Kong on June 23rd. It’s unclear if and when the country will approve the request, but Snowden’s Russian lawyer said his client’s unique legal situation would keep him in the transit zone for at least one more day. Stay tuned — we’ll be updating as more information becomes available.

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Via: Washington Post

Edward Snowden tells South China Morning Post he took Booz Allen job to collect NSA information

Edward Snowden may now be far from Hong Kong, but the South China Morning Post has just revealed more details from an interview he granted on June 12th while he was still there. According to the paper, Snowden reportedly said that he took a job with NSA-contractor Booz Allen Hamilton in order to gather additional evidence about the spy agency’s activities. “My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,” he said. “That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.” He reportedly further said “correct on Booz,” when asked if he specifically went to Booz Allen to gather evidence of surveillance. As the paper notes, Snowden also said that he took pay cuts “in the course of pursuing specific work” in an online Q&A with The Guardian last week, and he’s also indicated that he has more information he intends to leak, saying that he’d like to “make it available to journalists in each country to make their own assessment.”

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Source: South China Morning Post