Google Removes Privacy Control In Latest Android update

*Source: RT

AFP Photo / Greg Wood

Enhanced privacy controls in the Android 4.3, which allowed the installation of apps while blocking their ability to gather sensitive data from a user, have been removed in the new Android 4.4.2. Google says the feature's original release was an accident.

App Ops was a privacy component installed in the Android 4.3 which shielded information that users wanted to protect from any new app.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reported Wednesday that just a day after it had lauded the privacy feature via a blog post on its site, the organization learned that the option is no longer available on the Android 4.4.2 update, which was released earlier this week.

Google told EFF that the feature was included in 4.3 by accident, claiming the control was experimental and could ultimately break apps policed by it.

EFF stressed that there are ways Google could easily remedy such concerns if it so desired, by feeding fake information to the app or telling app developers that the privacy control could disrupt their program.

EFF called the disappearance of App Ops a “Stygian hole in the Android security model,” given that there is now no way to curb app permissions, despite the easy fixes which are available.

The digital rights group urged Google to renew App Ops for Android while improving the feature. Google could do this, EFF says, by adding targeted controls for users to be able to pick and choose which apps have access to sensitive data. In addition, Google could make App Ops workable for app developers in the process, the organization stated.

EFF says at the moment, though, Android users must choose between privacy and overall protection, as Android 4.4.2 includes updates to security and denial-of-service bugs.

The loss of the security feature comes at a time when mobile phone users are having to deal with unwanted snooping by the apps that they download - even when such data sharing is opt-out.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently came down on the makers of the ‘Brightest Flashlight,’ a popular free Android app that adapted the flash built into a handset to make it behave like a standard flashlight. Unbeknownst to users, however, the app had been secretly harvesting location and unique device identifier data and sharing it with advertisers and marketing networks.

Goldenshores Technologies, the US developer behind the Brightest Flashlight app, recently reached a settlement with the FTC. The app had been installed on “tens of millions” of Android devices, according to the agency.

Only One Percent Of Snowden’s Leaks Published.

*Source: Ben Swann

The Guardian claims to have published only one percent of the material leaked by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Snowden’s leaks revealed government spying by the United States and British governments.
Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, said that although Snowden leaked about 58,000 files, his paper only published “about one percent” of the total material. “I would not expect us to be publishing a huge amount more,” Rusbridger said as he was questioned by Parliament’s home affairs committee.

The editor also insisted that The Guardian did not put national security at risk or assist terrorists, as some government officials have accused. Rather, Rusbridger argued that the leaks helped the public as a whole by igniting a world-wide conversation about government surveillance.

He said, “There is no doubt in my mind … that newspapers have done something that oversight has failed to do.”

Still, the British government was so convinced that the leaks aided terrorism that a criminal investigation was launched and David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was detained. The British government will not disclose much information about the case, including the specific offenses The Guardian allegedly committed.

Rusbridger went on to say that his newspaper has been under immense pressure from government officials: “I feel that some of this activity has been designed to intimidate the Guardian.” He argued that this would be “inconceivable” in America, where journalists are protected by the First Amendment.

Britain has no constitutional right to free speech. The Guardian is a relatively small publication, with circulation just under 200,000 (although its online presence is fairly sizable). The government treatment of the paper exposes the way the British government views free speech — the freedom of expression is tolerated, so long as it does not “threaten” the public good.

Ben Swann
*http://www.benswann.com
*https://www.facebook.com/BenSwannRealityCheck
*https://www.twitter.com/benswann_
*http://www.youtube.com/user/BenSwannRealityCheck

Students Show NO MERCY, Pin NSA Recruiters Against Wall .

When NSA recruiters went to the University of Wisconsin earlier this week to pitch language students on working for the agency, they got more than they bargained for.

The informed students turned the question-and-answer session into a hearing. On trial were the NSA's lies, their legality, and how they define -adversary-.

The students recorded audio of the exchange on an iPhone proving that the language-analyst NSA recruiters were left tongue-tied.

-I'm surprised that for language analysts you're incredibly imprecise with your language,- grad student Madiha Tahir charged when they failed to define what constitutes an adversary.

-What you're selling us is untrue- she added. -We also know that the NSA took down brochures and fact sheets after the Snowden revelations because those fact sheets had severe inaccuracies and untruths in them -- so how are we supposed to believe what you're saying?-

Another student directly challenged the NSA's morality for using the -globe as their playground- and then partying at the office with co-workers. She then challenges them to become whistleblowers because the truth will ultimately prevail.

Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow.

*Source: WikiLeaks

Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.

Edward Joseph Snowden

Monday 1st July 2013

PRISM: Big Brother Government is Now in the Open

*Source: The Vigilant Citizen


For years at here Vigilant Citizen, I’ve been posting articles about the extreme amount of Big-Brotherish surveillance that is happening in the United States and the world. While some have dismissed these stories as “paranoid conspiracy theories”, recent revelations about the NSA’s project PRISM prove that there were no theories involved – just plain facts.

PRISM is a top-secret program that allows the NSA to directly access the servers of numerous online services and to obtain all kinds of information about its users. Since the story came out, some services such as Facebook denied any involvement with this program, stating that the NSA does not have access to their servers. The Guardian has however published leaked top-secret PowerPoint slides used to trained NSA agents that clearly state that 1- The NSA can directly access these servers and 2- Most major providers are directly involved in the program. Here are the slides.

This slide clearly states “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers”.

Here we see that no stone is left unturned by NSA spies: E-mails, video and voice chats, file transfers and social networking are all targeted. Yes, even Skype calls can be spied on by agents.

Here we see the exact time where each provider joined PRISM. The 1st one to join? Microsoft. In the light of my recent article on Microsoft’s gaming console Xbox One, this is not surprising. Now that it has been confirmed that the Xbox One will require an internet connection EVERY 24 hours, it is quite possible that the data collected by the console (audio and video) will be transferred right to NSA servers.

One might ask: Where does this enormous amount of data get processed? In 2012, I posted an article entitled The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center which stated:


“When construction is completed in 2013, the heavily fortified $2 billion facility will encompass 1 million square feet, including four 25,000-square-foot areas to house endless rows of high-powered servers. The center will be fed data collected by the agency’s eavesdropping satellites, overseas listening posts, and secret monitoring rooms in telecom facilities throughout the US. The incredible processing power of this facility will be used to scan e-mails, phone calls, text messages, tweets or any other kind of communication. As a former NSA officer states, while holding his thumb and forefinger close together “We are that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.”

I guess that the “turnkey totalitarian state” is now fully effective.

The whistleblower that leaked this story is named Ed Snowden and the US Government is looking to severely prosecute him. Here’s a YouTube video of him describing how what’s happening now is WORSE than the novel 1984.

 



Note this part.

“Because even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude to where it’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call. And then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made. Every friend you’ve ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis, to derive suspicion from an innocent life, and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.”

So to those who say “If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t worry”. You’re wrong. Dead wrong. And, to be honest, it is this kind of attitude that will destroy whatever is left of liberty and privacy in the U.S. and the world. Furthermore, if you are outside of the United States – especially in countries such as Canada, UK or Australia – do not think that you’re safe. The elite knows no national boundaries and what has be revealed in the United States is most likely already happening in many other countries.

It is seriously time to wake up and to let people know that privacy, freedom and democracy are in serious jeopardy here. There is no speculation, no “tin foil hats” and no conspiracy theory. This is what’s happening right now and, if you value your freedom, you better do something about it and get your voice heard.

NSA Collecting Phone Records Of Millions Of Verizon Customers Daily

*Source: The Guardian

Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama.

Under the terms of the order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data and the time and duration of all calls. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP

 

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.
Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself.

"We decline comment," said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.

The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of "all call detail records or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad" or "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls".

The order directs Verizon to "continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order". It specifies that the records to be produced include "session identifying information", such as "originating and terminating number", the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and "comprehensive communication routing information".

The information is classed as "metadata", or transactional information, rather than communications, and so does not require individual warrants to access. The document also specifies that such "metadata" is not limited to the aforementioned items. A 2005 court ruling judged that cell site location data – the nearest cell tower a phone was connected to – was also transactional data, and so could potentially fall under the scope of the order.

While the order itself does not include either the contents of messages or the personal information of the subscriber of any particular cell number, its collection would allow the NSA to build easily a comprehensive picture of who any individual contacted, how and when, and possibly from where, retrospectively.

It is not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone provider to be targeted with such an order, although previous reporting has suggested the NSA has collected cell records from all major mobile networks. It is also unclear from the leaked document whether the three-month order was a one-off, or the latest in a series of similar orders.

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities.

For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.

Because those activities are classified, the senators, both members of the Senate intelligence committee, have been prevented from specifying which domestic surveillance programs they find so alarming. But the information they have been able to disclose in their public warnings perfectly tracks both the specific law cited by the April 25 court order as well as the vast scope of record-gathering it authorized.

Julian Sanchez, a surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, explained: "We've certainly seen the government increasingly strain the bounds of 'relevance' to collect large numbers of records at once — everyone at one or two degrees of separation from a target — but vacuuming all metadata up indiscriminately would be an extraordinary repudiation of any pretence of constraint or particularized suspicion." The April order requested by the FBI and NSA does precisely that.

The law on which the order explicitly relies is the so-called "business records" provision of the Patriot Act, 50 USC section 1861. That is the provision which Wyden and Udall have repeatedly cited when warning the public of what they believe is the Obama administration's extreme interpretation of the law to engage in excessive domestic surveillance.

In a letter to attorney general Eric Holder last year, they argued that "there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows."
"We believe," they wrote, "that most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted" the "business records" provision of the Patriot Act.

Privacy advocates have long warned that allowing the government to collect and store unlimited "metadata" is a highly invasive form of surveillance of citizens' communications activities. Those records enable the government to know the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication.

Such metadata is what the US government has long attempted to obtain in order to discover an individual's network of associations and communication patterns. The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

The NSA, as part of a program secretly authorized by President Bush on 4 October 2001, implemented a bulk collection program of domestic telephone, internet and email records. A furore erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported that the NSA had "been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth" and was "using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity." Until now, there has been no indication that the Obama administration implemented a similar program.

These recent events reflect how profoundly the NSA's mission has transformed from an agency exclusively devoted to foreign intelligence gathering, into one that focuses increasingly on domestic communications. A 30-year employee of the NSA, William Binney, resigned from the agency shortly after 9/11 in protest at the agency's focus on domestic activities.

In the mid-1970s, Congress, for the first time, investigated the surveillance activities of the US government. Back then, the mandate of the NSA was that it would never direct its surveillance apparatus domestically.

At the conclusion of that investigation, Frank Church, the Democratic senator from Idaho who chaired the investigative committee, warned: "The NSA's capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter."

Additional reporting by Ewen MacAskill and Spencer Ackerman

16-Year-Old Questioned by FBI Over You Tube Video

*Source: InfoWars

Special Agents visit boy’s home to ask about school project

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, September 11, 2012

In another shocking example of how the federal government is repositioning itself as a secret police force to target political dissidents, a 16-year-old boy was questioned by FBI agents over a You Tube video he created for a school project which highlighted how America was slipping into a police state.

The video clip above, which promotes the presidential campaign of Congressman Ron Paul, was put together by Justin Hallman as part of a project for his American Government class. The video helped earn Hallman an A+ pass and his teacher enthused about how impressed he was with Hallman’s efforts.

The video touches on a number of issues, including the National Defense Authorization Act, evidence suggesting the Republican caucus in Maine was fixed to disenfranchise Ron Paul, the hacktivist group Anonymous, military drills taking place in American cities, as well as eviscerations of the right to free speech.

About a month later, Hallman was shocked to receive a knock on the door of his family’s home from two FBI agents, including Special Agent Matthew Bowman. Hallman provided us with images of Bowman’s FBI card which he left at the property when Hallman decided not to answer the door.

When Hallman’s mother called the number on the card she was told by Bowman, “We need to talk to your son.”

The two FBI agents returned to the house and began to talk to Hallman about his interests and hobbies, a tactic Hallman saw as the FBI agents attempting to gain his trust.

The FBI agents then attempted to recruit Hallman to spy on Anonymous. “They wanted me to be an informant, to possibly put my life in danger, to help them arrest and gain intel on occupy protesters and hackers,” he writes.

The agents then began to question Hallman about his support for Ron Paul’s presidential campaign as well as a conversation he had conducted with his teacher about the Illuminati secret society.

“They also asked me why I had talked to my teacher about the Illuminati,” writes Hallman. “I told them it was just harmless talk about the 1776 Illuminati that formed from the enlightenment era. I said my teacher said they are/were terrorists and not to talk about them (this caused the FBI agents to look puzzled and they changed the subject very fast to Anonymous). In the end they finally left for an “important meeting.”

The fact that the FBI men knew about Hallman’s conversation with his teacher clearly suggests that it was the teacher or another official at the school who reported Hallman to the FBI in the first place.

Hallman concluded his email by expressing concern the incident could hamper his future career prospects.

“So that’s my story, a teen from the suburbs who was questioned by the FBI about a harmless free speech protected video I made for school. My record forever scarred with the truth that the FBI questioned me. When getting a job they will see that, when getting a passport they will see that, when going to college they will see that,” he writes.

This case represents merely the latest example of Americans being questioned, harassed and intimidated by different branches of the federal government over their political beliefs.

Last month former Marine Brandon Raub was kidnapped by authorities and held in a psychiatric ward for political posts made on Facebook, just one of thousands of similar ongoing cases. Gun owners are also having their firearms confiscated having been declared “mentally defective” due to their political beliefs.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

DHS Documents Show Big Sis Spying On Infowars!

*Source: InfoWars

Alex Jones reports on DHS spying documents

FOIA Documents: DHS Monitored Opposition to ‘See Something, Say Something’ Program

Federal agency tracked Infowars stories, user comments

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Sunday, August 19, 2012

Hundreds of pages of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the Department of Homeland Security monitored political opposition to the See Something, Say Something campaign, as well as tracking Infowars stories and user comments on a myriad of other issues while categorizing the website as “Right Wing Terrorism”.

Having initially requested copies of records in August 2011, “regarding any political profiling documents that specify what groups are monitored under fusion centers all over the country and which kinds of people are profiled,” Brian D. Hill of USWGO.com finally received the documents recently after a year of back and forth communication with the agency during which he narrowed down his request to include search results which included DHS discussion of a handful of websites, including Infowars.com.

The documents contain email communications as well as intelligence reports circulated between different offices of the Department of Homeland Security as well as the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). In most cases, the identities of individuals both sending and receiving the messages have been redacted.

A report dated January 24, 2011, marked “for official use only” and produced by the Amtrak Intelligence Team is entitled Opposition to “See Something, Say Something”.

The report notes how Infowars.com launched a campaign in opposition to the DHS program, which encourages citizens to report “suspicious activity” to the authorities, including via television screens at Wal-Mart stores which play a message from DHS chief Janet Napolitano.

The document notes how Infowars “claims” the campaign was based on the “V for Victory” symbol of French resistance to Nazi occupation in WWII, while implying that the movie V For Vendetta, as well as an incident in 2006 where Clay Duke spray painted a ‘V’ on the wall during a school board meeting in Panama City, Florida before shooting at board members, were motivations behind the campaign.

“Some people may associate the film in which a modern-day Guy Fawkes attacks a totalitarian regime in England with Jones’ campaign,” states the document.

The report includes screenshots of posters used in the campaign, alongside the text, “Alex Jones is calling on
people to place campaign posters in public places to counter a perceived “police state.” Supporters also might write the letter “V” on public property as a protest effort.”

The report makes it clear that the growth and success of the campaign was monitored by federal authorities.

“Jones’ Facebook page offers 58 “V for Victory” posters that people can print, and as of 24 January, 1,840 people “liked” his “V for Victory” Facebook page. Over 135,000 “like” Jones’ personal Facebook page,” states the report.

The document also includes a photo of an activist placing a ‘V’ poster on a telegraph pole in support of the campaign.

Screenshots from the report entitled ‘Opposition to See Something, Say Something’.

“On Jones’ website PrisonPlanet.com, an individual posted his photo (pictured above) in support of the campaign. Over 60 responses to the campaign shared support,” states the document.

The report then quotes an individual with the user name ‘netwrkingman’, who commented, “Just got done with my flyer campaign, EVERY Wal Mart door pole, fast food drive thru and Star Bucks drive thru in my local 3 cities is now V’d up. Woo.”

The document also notes how aggressive TSA screening policies introduced in 2010, “Spurred increased criticism that the U.S. government has become a “police state” that is abusing individual liberty.”

A subsequent email sent the next day by an individual from the “Office of Intelligence & Analysis – U.S. Department of Homeland Security – Baton Rouge, LA,” states, “For your S/A if you haven’t seen this reporting from yesterday—the groups is trying to counter the DSH (sic) “see something, say something” campaign.”

Another DHS email contains an Infowars story about how the DHS’ promotional videos for its See Something, Say Something campaign go to great lengths to portray white, middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists. The article notes how, “No matter where you look, from East Germany, to Communist Russia, to Nazi Germany, historically governments who encourage their own citizens to report on each other do so not for any genuine safety concerns or presumed benefits to security, but in order to create an authoritarian police state that coerces the people into policing each other’s behavior and thoughts.”

The emails also expose how the Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring Infowars in relation to a number of other news stories.

An email dated April 6, 2009 sent to “SL_Field” contains an article by Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center about Richard Poplawski, the man who killed three Pittsburgh police officers during a shoot-out on April 4, 2009. In the article, Poplawski attempts to lay the blame on Alex Jones for the shootings by claiming that “Poplawski was reportedly interested” in Alex Jones’ websites – Infowars and Prison Planet. What Potok fails to divulge is the fact that Poplawski had left comments on both websites disagreeing with and denigrating Alex Jones. When this was revealed, numerous large media outlets had to issue retractions withdrawing the claim that Poplawski was inspired by Jones, but the SPLC failed to follow suit.

One of the documents also covers the DHS’ reaction to an incident in January 2011 where a sticker was placed on the mirror inside a restroom at the Mitchell Courthouse, Baltimore City Circuit Court. The sticker, which read “9-11 Was an Inside Job. Learn the truth at InfoWars.com PrisonPlanet.com Jonesreport.com,” prompted the courthouse to contact the DHS and ask for advice on whether “I&A, SLPO and other LE/IC partners have reported similar activities?”

“This is a promotional sticker from Prison Planet and Infowars: He’s a conspiracy theorist from back in the late nineties that gets some airplay from but no one else takes him seriously. He believes that there’s a cabal of secret global elites that control the government through secret societies like Skull and Bones, Bohemian Grove, Masons, etc,” stated the DHS reply.

“The fact that this incident was even reported seems like a complete waste of time and paper, the fact that it was even reported at all is really pretty scary,” notes Donna Anderson. “This was merely a sticker, a thin piece of paper glued to a mirror, but because the message suggested a government cover-up, it was deemed a “threat” and reported to the DHS.”

A long email from April 2009 containing numerous news articles makes reference to how some on the political right were claiming that the DHS had begun to demonize conservatives as part of a “plan” to move away from any focus on Islamic terrorism”. The email contains articles from World Net Daily, the American Spectator, Atlas Shrugged, Stormfront, as well an Infowars story entitled Secret DHS Doc Predicts Violence in Response to New Gun Restrictions.

This article also forms the body of a subsequent email circulated within the DHS and sent to “A&P Managers” which also contained an attachment entitled, “Homeland Security Assessment Rightwing Extremism Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

The email notes how, “This must be the article (see attached email chain) that generated the calls to the NOC this morning.” The article describes how a DHS document warns federal and local officials to expect “terrorism” in response to planned firearm restrictions.

The document also contains dozens of comments from respondents to the articles, highlighting how the DHS is also closely monitoring remarks made on the Internet.

An email from August 2009 contains an article which includes a reference to an Infowars story about preparations for martial law in the event of a mass pandemic.

Screenshot of the Infowars.com front page in a report entitled “Right Wing Terrorism”.

Another document contains a power point-style report entitled “Right Wing Terrorism”. Included along with images of racist scrawlings on restroom walls, white supremacists, neo-nazis, and other race-hate groups is the Oath Keepers organization, the Sovereign Citizen movement and a screenshot of the Infowars.com front page next to the words, Hardin – American Police Force – Conspiracy theorists believe this is the new location for the FEMA camp.”

This refers to investigation conducted by Infowars in September 2009 during which it was revealed that a private security force had begun patrolling the streets of Hardin, Montana after the group was originally contracted to provide security at a previously empty detention center located in the town.

Another email from February 2010 which includes the acronym “FYI” (for your interest), contains an Infowars story by Kurt Nimmo documenting how police officers in Canada had been caught posing as anarchists in order to provocateur violence and demonize legitimate protesters.

Another email dated February 19, 2011 contains a link to Infowars article written by Steve Watson and Paul Joseph Watson entitled Don’t Be Evil? 10 Ways In Which Google Runs The World, which describes how Google has grown to become “literally an a corporate arm of the intelligence community.”

An email dated May 3, 2011 contains an L.A. Times article which discusses how “conspiracy theorists” doubt the official narrative behind the death of Osama Bin Laden following the dubious tale about how the Al-Qaeda leader was “buried at sea”.

These documents illustrate the fact that the Department of Homeland Security is slowly evolving into a KGB-lite style secret police outfit that seems to be just as concerned about monitoring political free speech as it is about genuine threats to the homeland.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) also admits that it has documents which contain political profiling pertaining to Alex Jones, Infowars as well as the Drudge Report, but has thus far refused to release them despite facing a Freedom of Information Act request.

Read the full list of released documents below, courtesy of USWGO.com.

Final Notification of FOIA Request sent to USWGO – PDF
Document 1 – PDF
Document 2 – PDF
Document 3 – PDF
Document 4 – PDF
Document 5 – PDF
Document 6 – PDF
Document 7 – PDF
Document 8 – PDF
Document 9 – PDF
Document 10 – PDF
Document 11 – PDF
Document 12 – PDF

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Confirmed: US Government Spies On Federal Staffers

*Source: RT

“Who would have thought that they would have the nerve to be monitoring my communications to Congress?”

Several federal agencies have purchased an advanced software application that allows administrators to see every single action, item, mouse click and more performed on their employees’ computers. Some say it’s being implemented to end whistleblowing.

In the midst of a witch-hunt that has targeted anyone accused of leaking documents, the US federal government has been linked to a massive acquisition of spyware that allows the higher ups to get ahold of essentially any communiqué and comment made by its employees on any electronic device. Some agents with the Food and Drug Administration insist that their personal conversations were unlawfully monitored by their higher-ups using the program, citing their superiors’ fears that whistleblowers will continue to come to lawmakers to voice concern over dangerous practices within the FDA.

“We are looking for what we call indicators of compromise,” Joy Miller, deputy assistant secretary for security at the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA’s parent agency, says to the Washington Post. “We’re monitoring a system, not everybody in that environment.”

Journalists with the Post penned an article this week that examines the use of Spector 360, monitoring software made by the SpectorSoft group, within the FDA and other agencies.

According to the FDA, staffers had their computer activity monitored and logged over concern that employees were disclosing trade secrets. Those agents, however, argue that they were spied on to ensure that they were not reporting internal corruption to Congress. And while the Post’s expose examines the government’s attempts to chill any employee’s attempt at blowing the whistle on wrongdoing, it only begins to open up what great lengths the feds are willing to go to.

In January, six FDA scientists filed a lawsuit against the agency in US District Court over claims that they were unlawfully spied on after approaching Congress with their concerns that their office was allowing the approval of medical devices that posed a risk to the public. When the Post reported on those claims at the time, they unearthed emails dating back to early 2009 that showed that the FDA had intercepted emails between agency whistleblowers and congressional staffers.

“Who would have thought that they would have the nerve to be monitoring my communications to Congress?” Robert C. Smith, one of the plaintiffs, told the Post at the time.

Seven months later, not only are federal employees being still subjected to constant monitoring, but some have suggested that the surveillance surpasses what the government is allowed to do by the books. One expert tells the paper that any device used to access encrypted government data is then considered fair-game for any surveillance software.

“The general policy right now is if a personal device accesses any agency information, it adopts the profile of a government-issued device,” Tom Clare, senior director of product marketing for Websense, tells the Post. “They’re going to monitor everything.”

And it isn’t just everything, but everywhere, too, apparently. In an investigation carried out earlier this month by the National law Journal, the paper writes, “Government-contract records show that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) purchased spy software from the same company that supplied the FDA’s computer monitoring program, according to the database USAspending.gov.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration has also been tied to the software, an accusation confirmed by spokeswoman Dawn Dearden to the National Law Journal. On her part, though, Dearden pleads that the DEA “is aware of protections afforded to whistleblowers and does not monitor or check for that kind of activity.”

Despite this claim, some say that this monitoring could chill even thoughts of blowing the whistle.

“The actions of agency management have negatively impacted employee morale and resulted in significant concerns about agency management practices,” Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, tells the Journal. “For example, in light of what has happened at FDA, some employees voiced to [the union] their reluctance to report wrongdoing, for fear of retaliation.”

Transportation Security Administration Spokesman David Castelveter adds to the Post that the use of such software within that agency isn’t part of a war on whistleblowing, but instead is “about protecting the sensitive nature of the transportation security mission.” When certain information is kept under wraps to avoid being brought to the public, though — as with the lawsuit against the FDA — sensitive information is sometimes needed to be introduced outside of the agency for the sake of safety.

The Post reports that Spector 360 has been sold to at least one dozen federal agencies. In a request for solicitations posted by the Department of Homeland Security’s TSA in July, the government goes about explaining exactly what they look for in such software.

“The scope of this procurement is an enterprise insider threat software package,” the solicitation reads. “In order to detect an insider threat, technology is required to monitor and obtain visibility into users' actions. TSA Focused Operations requires a tool that can monitor user activities at the user host level.”

Included in the government’s requirements for responses is the ability for the software to look at and log keystrokes, chats, email correspondence, website activity and file transferring, as well as the capacity to capture a screenshot of any activity occurring on a computer monitor at any time. It also mandates that the end user “must not have the ability to detect this technology,” nor the ability to terminating the monitoring on their own.

According to a press release published in June, SpectorSoft has provided services to more than 160,000 businesses, government organizations, schools and law enforcement agencies. In a case study included on the SpectorSoft.com website, KBSolutions, Inc. President Jim Tanner claims, “To date, no offender has successfully attacked Spector Pro or defeated it.”

CIA Head: We Will Spy On Americans Through Electrical Appliances

*Source: InfoWars

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
March 16, 2012

CIA director David Petraeus has said that the rise of new “smart” gadgets means that Americans are effectively bugging their own homes, saving US spy agencies a job when it identifies any “persons of interest”.

Speaking at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s technology investment operation, Petraeus made the comments when discussing new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously ‘dumb’ home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.

Wired reports the details via its Danger Room Blog:

“‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”

“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” Petraeus said.

“the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.” the CIA head added.

Petraeus also stated that such devices within the home “change our notions of secrecy”.

Petraeus’ comments come in the same week that one of the biggest microchip companies in the world, ARM, unveiled new processors that are designed to give practically every household appliance an internet connection, in order that they can be remote controlled and operate in tandem with applications.

ARM describes the concept as an “internet of things”.

Where will all the information from such devices be sent and analyzed? It can be no coincidence that the NSA is currently building a monolithic heavily fortified $2 billion facility deep in the Utah desert and surrounded by mountains. The facility is set to go fully live in September 2013.

“The Utah data center is the centerpiece of the Global Information Grid, a military project that will handle yottabytes of data, an amount so huge that there is no other data unit after it.” reports Gizmodo.

“This center—with every listening post, spy satellite and NSA datacenter connected to it, will make the NSA the most powerful spy agency in the world.”

Wired reports that the incoming data is being mined by plugging into telecommunications companies’ switches, essentially the same method the NSA infamously uses for warrantless wiretapping of domestic communications, as exposed six years ago.

Former intelligence analyst turned best selling author James Bamford, has penned a lengthy piece on the NSA facility and warns “It is, in some measure, the realization of the ‘total information awareness’ program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.”

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.