http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server-collection-facebook-google

@scottinbloxwich - better move to a cave. I don't know whether the ramifications of all this have really been thought through, but if the NSA can gain direct access to the servers of Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc, what will stop them from gaining direct access to, say, the servers of firewall makers?

When they do it really shouldn't be too hard to obtain direct access to everyone's computers... and not only copy the contents of their hard drives, but also to switch on the video cameras and mics on people's laptops and monitor everyone in real time in their homes, 1984-style.

Almost all Android apps already demand the most bizarre permissions, and offer the possibility to spy on us wherever we are, 24/7, with real time video and audio recordings, and I suspect it's the same for other mobile phone operating systems.

With data storage being very cheap and getting cheaper, the NSA, if it isn't stopped, will soon be able to log everything we do and say, 24/7, forever. It will mean the end, not only of privacy (a human right by article 12 of the Declaration of Human Rights, btw) but also of whatever is left of freedom and democracy--there's no way any people's movement that would really challenge the status quo, or perhaps even just challenge the current government, would be allowed to gain any traction.

The Huffington Post photoshop pic, blending the faces of GWB and Obama was brilliant. I've also seen blends of the faces of Obama and Big Brothers... very apt, and what a comedown from Obama's high promises.

http://ian56..co.uk/2013/06/verizon-revelations-tom-clements.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/09/glenn-greenwald-this-week-should-expect-more-revelations_n_3411834.html

The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald appeared on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday and told host George Stephanopoulos that the public should expect more revelations from him.

Last week, Greenwald broke the bombshell story about the NSA collecting phone data from millions of Verizon customers. Additional stories on major government surveillance programs followed, including news about the NSA program called Prism that allows officials to collect material from some of the country's largest Internet companies (including AOL, HuffPost's parent company).

On Sunday, Greenwald published another story about an NSA datamining tool used for global surveillance called Boundless Informant.

"Should we be expecting more revelations from you?" Stephanopoulos asked Greenwald.

"You should," he said.

During the segment, Greenwald responded to criticisms from the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who called The Guardian's reports "reprehensible."

Every single time any major media outlet reports on something that the government is hiding, that political officials don't want people to know, such as the fact that they are collecting the phone records of all Americans, regardless of any suspicion of wrongdoing, the people in power do exactly the same thing.

They attack the media as the messenger and they are trying to discredit the story. This has been going back decades, ever since the Pentagon papers were released by the New York Times, and political officials said you are endangering national security.

The only thing we've endangered is the reputation of the people in power who are building this massive spying apparatus about any accountability who are trying to hide from the American people what it is that they are doing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

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

LI: With the Verizon leak this week, do you think that’s an isolated event, or indicative of a whole lot more?

WB: That court order was 13-80. The 80th order of just this year. It’s been going on a long time.

LI: The second leak this week was about PRISM, where the NSA appears to tap directly into Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and other companies’ servers to access whatever data they want without a warrant. What is your knowledge of, or thoughts regarding, this program?

WB: I just saw the report, and I wasn’t aware of that program. But I figured it was going on, because they were just another source of input of information. The telecoms were giving NSA access to their communication lines. The Narus devices that the NSA put in different rooms around the AT&T fiber-optic network, or Verizon’s network, couldn’t collect everything. They could get most of it, but they couldn’t get it all. So in order to get all the data, they had to go to the service providers to fill in the blanks. That’s what the PRISM program is for—to fill in the blanks. It also gives the FBI basis for introducing evidence into court.

LI: A couple of these companies have come out and said that they don’t provide this data to the NSA. Do you suspect that they are lying?

WB: Oh, yeah. Obviously. Absolutely.

LI: How much data do you estimate will be able to be stored at the NSA facility in Utah?

WB: I simply took what was commercially available off of cleversafe.com, which is 10 exabytes in 200 square feet. Then I divided 200 square feet into the 100,000 square feet of storage that will be at the facility. Then you get 5,000 exabytes stored in that area. That’s five zetabytes. What that means is around 500 years of the world’s communications, if they used all the space for that purpose. I figure they wouldn’t have to do more than 100 years, and the rest of it they can use with parallel processors to try to break codes.

LI: Speaking of the average American citizen, how much data would you estimate the government has collected on them, and what type of information?

WB: It’s everything—phones, emails, twitter, any kind of digital communications that they’ve had. I think it’s into banking as well, but I don’t know that for sure. I do believe they’re doing it

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/nsa-prism-data-mining_n_3399310.html

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.

Some of the world's largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft -– which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan "Your privacy is our priority" -– was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.

It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance

he individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," but "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."

"Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets," he said.

"We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.

By 2007, the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland. His responsibility for maintaining computer network security meant he had clearance to access a wide array of classified documents.

That access, along with the almost three years he spent around CIA officers, led him to begin seriously questioning the rightness of what he saw.

He described as formative an incident in which he claimed CIA operatives were attempting to recruit a Swiss banker to obtain secret banking information. Snowden said they achieved this by purposely getting the banker drunk and encouraging him to drive home in his car. When the banker was arrested for drunk driving, the undercover agent seeking to befriend him offered to help, and a bond was formed that led to successful recruitment.

"Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world," he says. "I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good."

He said it was during his CIA stint in Geneva that he thought for the first time about exposing government secrets

the election of Barack Obama in 2008 gave him hope that there would be real reforms, rendering disclosures unnecessary.

He left the CIA in 2009 in order to take his first job working for a private contractor that assigned him to a functioning NSA facility, stationed on a military base in Japan. It was then, he said, that he "watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in", and as a result, "I got hardened."

The primary lesson from this experience was that "you can't wait around for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act."

Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA's surveillance activities were, claiming "they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them".

As strong as those beliefs are, there still remains the question: why did he do it? Giving up his freedom and a privileged lifestyle? "There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich."

For him, it is a matter of principle. "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to," he said.

This thing is front page stuff, this has been a major new in the last two days.

That whistle blower is going to be hunted like an animal, I hope he is prepared for what's to come, he now joins the likes of bradley manning and julian assange. I wish him good luck, he did the right thing.

Unfortunately the moderators feel nairalanders don't have the adequate minimum IQ to comprehend such news that affects every aspect of our lives as we now move online. I am content with it being were it is for the truly discerning. They have got us all figured out and there is really nothing we can do about it.

William Hague said it succintly when he said the spying is legal and if you have nothing to hide you should not be afraid of invasion of your privacy. Welcome to 1984, George Orwell was a true prophet.

Such a shame!
29years old high school dropout, hired by Booze A as contractor to work for CIA and earning $200,000 a year?
I know that being a veteran might have given him an edge but serious for real America?
I hope he is hunted too. A very stu.pid thing to do.
Going to China to hide is laughable.

http://rt.com/usa/anonymous-leaks-prism-nsa-docs-395/

Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous collective have leaked a US Department of Defense memo relating to the PRISM program, revealing that the National Security Agency has secretly gathered intelligence on millions of Americans for years.

The hacktivists, who have long sought complete transparency online and elsewhere, published a total of thirteen documents, one of which outlines the US government’s “NetOps Strategic Vision” for monitoring the Internet.

The documents are mostly pulled from 2008, just after when the government reportedly began using PRISM to mine servers at technology companies including Microsoft and Yahoo. An NSA slideshow published Thursday by the Guardian and the Washington Post reveals the intelligence community first gained access to Google in January of 2009 and Facebook in June of the same year.

“NetOps will transform along with the Global Information Grid to dynamically support new warfighting, intelligence, and business processes and enable users to access and share trusted information in a timely manner,” one document states.

“The future Global Information Grid will result in a richer Net-Centric information environment comprised of shared services and capabilities based on advanced technologies."

The funniest thing is the U.S kick, and cry about how terrible China is for spying on them.....What 'credibility' do they have now to cry about 'anything'

Technically, he isn’t a “whistleblower”. He hasn’t disclosed anything illegal. In fact, this program has been approved by the courts and all 3 govt branches. This is nothing new. The only thing he has done, if he is the person that disclosed this info- was commit a felony. As someone with libertarian leanings, I strongly disagree with this program. However- it’s legal.

In October, 2001- America gave up liberty for security in a sense, with the Patriot Act. Why are people so shocked? Im shocked- that your shocked. Every President in the future will use this. Why? Because the last thing they want is a massive terror attack on their watch and have to deal with an schizophrenic American public that blames the President for “not doing enough”.

So, this guy, although brave, didn’t not disclose any criminal info. His actions, if true, were criminal, given current law.

Hello O Great and Powerful wizards of the NSA! I come in peace.
My computer crashed a few weeks ago and I lost a spreadsheet I
was working on, if you have it backed up somewhere, can you
mail it to me please? I trust you know how to find me. Thanks!
....very funny comment i saw on an article about the prism project. So much for us being a free state.

50calibre: I wish him good luck, he did the right thing.

He hasn't done the right thing, he has betrayed his country, switched allegiance all to feel hero1c.
Edward Snowden = st00p1d guy, st00p1d m0ve

This Edward Snowden guy is a hero-feeling masochist. I don't see anything wrong with Uncle Sam scanning the whole world for nut-cases so the rest of us can feel safe and informed. Ofcourse almost everyone knows at the back of their mind that the almighty USA ought to have gizmos that does things like what this disturbed, indignant-feeling guy risked his life, liberty, money and comfortability for, all to feel HEROIC. I just don't get it.