NSA in the limelight today

Some NSA-related news from Cryptogon today

NSA Falsified Intercepted Communications in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident – New York Times

In an echo of the debates over the discredited intelligence that helped make the case for the war in Iraq, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday released more than 1,100 pages of previously classified Vietnam-era transcripts that show senators of the time sharply questioning whether they had been deceived by the White House and the Pentagon over the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.

“If this country has been misled, if this committee, this Congress, has been misled by pretext into a war in which thousands of young men have died, and many more thousands have been crippled for life, and out of which their country has lost prestige, moral position in the world, the consequences are very great,” Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, the father of the future vice president, said in March 1968 in a closed session of the Foreign Relations Committee.

…

Robert J. Hanyok, a retired National Security Agency historian, said Wednesday in an interview that “there were doubts, but nobody wanted to follow up on the doubts,” perhaps because “they felt they’d gone too far down the road.”

Mr. Hanyok concluded in 2001 that N.S.A. officers had deliberately falsified intercepted communications in the incident to make it look like the attack on Aug. 4, 1964, had occurred, although he said they acted not out of political motives but to cover up earlier errors.

Many historians say that President Johnson might have found reason to escalate military action against North Vietnam even without the Tonkin Gulf crisis, and that he apparently had his own doubts. Historians note that a few days after the supposed attack he told George W. Ball, the under secretary of state, “Hell, those dumb, stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish!”

Former NSA executive Thomas A. Drake may pay high price for media leak – Washington Post (page 2)

In 2001, Drake was promoted to senior executive, heading the office of change leadership and communications. His first day on the job happened to be Sept. 11: In the course of hours, al-Qaeda’s attack changed the national conversation about privacy. Suddenly the emphasis was on detecting plots rather than on trying to ensure that the agency never spy on Americans, even inadvertently.

Facebook adds face detection for photos, only 1% of users have it so far

downloadsquad.com
by Jay Hathaway (RSS feed) Jul 2nd 2010 at 2:30PM

Facebook is testing out a new face detection feature in its photo app, according to AllFacebook.com. This is the first big change to Photos since Facebook bought up Divvyshot a couple of months ago. Face detection recognizes faces in photos, and gives you a prompt to tell FB whose faces they are. This reduces the amount of clicking required to go through and tag that huge album from last night’s party. Of course, this feature won’t help you identify the strangers who appear in those photos … that would be a bit creepy.

It doesn’t sound like this is full-on facial recognition and auto-tagging … yet. That seems like the obvious next step for Facebook, though. If they go that route, they’ll already have the ability to pick a face out of a photo, and then plenty of user data about who the faces belong to. Geez, it’s hard enough to untag my ugly mug in photos as it is!

If you don’t see face detection on your photos yet, don’t worry. Only 1% of users have it so far, according to Facebook.

must … delete …. facebook profile [udpated]

Facebook came after my time, and I learned better before getting entirely sucked into that. Ok scratch that.  I had a change of heart recently on this issue. I created a facebook app just for qbit.cc.  I don’t like using it for personal stuff but it can be useful for networking.

Friendster and Myspace were scary enough but Facebook’s ever-changing privacy agreement and DARPA/CIA connections have taken social data mining to a new level.  It would hardly be a surprise if every last bit of private data in all all our social network profiles were being integrated into Main Core.

When pondering the privacy implications of social networking, I envision a scenario where an Orwellian pre-crime system has determined that you are at risk of committing a crime, or some non-crime that you have “committed” in the past (blogging) retroactively becomes a crime, and the government uses private info from your social network sites to hunt you down.

I’m having a “Turn on, tune in, drop out” hippie moment.  For those of you saying “I’ve got nothing to hide, thus no reason to worry about having my private info on social networks.”  I wish I could tell you a story about being caught up in some drama, thru no fault of my own, and having my Myspace profile analyzed by a cop posing as a reporter.  But I’m no longer naiive enough to post private things in public places.

I’ve got nothing to hide… therefore the government has got no f’ing business accessing my private information.

Related:
Report: Facebook caught sharing secret data with advertisers (Ars Technica)

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Wikipedia)

Qwest CEO imprisoned in retaliation for failure to cut surveillance deal with NSA

(WMR) — WMR has learned from sources who worked in senior positions for the telecommunications company Qwest that its former chairman and CEO, Joseph Nacchio, was threatened with retaliation after he refused to participate in an unconstitutional and illegal National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapping program after he met with NSA officials on February 27, 2001, some six months before the 9/11 attacks. Nacchio refused to turn over customer records without a court order — something NSA did not possess at the time it made its request.

After Nacchio refused NSA’s request on the grounds that it was illegal, sources close to Nacchio reported his legal problems with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission began in earnest. First, Qwest lost out on several lucrative federal government contracts and second, Nacchio was indicted and convicted in 2007 of 19 counts of insider stock trading. Nacchio was sentenced to six years in the Schuykill federal prison camp in Minersville, Pennsylvania, where he is now assigned prisoner number 33973-013.

In January, US District Judge Marcia Krieger of the 10th Circuit Court in Denver denied Nacchio’s motion for a new trial. Krieger was nominated for the federal bench by President George W. Bush on September 10, 2001. The September 10 date is significant – it was then clear that Nacchio was not going to be a player in the NSA and FBI illegal surveillance programs and it was the day before the Bush administration would sweep aside the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Qwest is headquartered in Denver.

The illegal NSA surveillance program, once known by its highly-classified code-name STELLAR WIND, was revealed by AT&T employee Mark Klein, who divulged NSA’s “secret room” on the 6th floor at AT&T’s central office on Folsom Street in San Francisco. The “secret room” was next door to the 4ESS phone switch. According to AT&T documents, NSA had direct wiretaps on key Internet circuits on the floor above. NSA’s operation conducted vacuum-cleaner copying of the data stream of the Internet, which included e-mail, web browsing, VOIP phone calls (e.g., Skype) and all the other common Internet services. There is informed speculation that because of an aggressive AT&T internal campaign to transfer all its old long-distance traffic to fiber lines, traditional phone calls that passed through the 4ESS switch were likely transferred to the Internet circuits, making phone calls also very likely subject to NSA eavesdropping.

AT&T and Verizon agreed to participate in the STELLAR WIND program.

Even though there is ample evidence that the federal government engaged in massive prosecutorial misconduct in retaliation for Nacchio’s refusal to participate in STELLAR WIND and associated FBI surveillance programs, the Supreme Court refused to review the case against the former Qwest chief. The Supreme Court also denied Nacchio bail pending his appeal, a clear attempt by the most corrupt Supreme Court in American history to prevent Nacchio from airing the NSA’s dirty laundry about domestic wiretapping and pressure on telecommunication firms’ senior corporate officials.

Qwest shareholders and retirees blamed Nacchio for their financial losses, however, it is now clear that the NSA and the Bush administration targeted Qwest for retribution after its top boss refused to cooperate in the illegal domestic wiretap programs of the NSA and FBI.

Qwest founder, railroad and oil magnate Philip Anschutz, a conservative Christian who owns The Examiner chain of metro region newspapers and several entertainment firms and professional sports teams, testified on Nacchio’s behalf.

The news of NSA’s threats of retaliation against Nacchio will come as little comfort to those NSA employees, including the jailed ex-NSA analyst Ken Ford, Jr., on similar trumped up charges. If someone as wealthy and powerful as Nacchio could be brought down by the illegal domestic joint targeting operations carried out by the NSA, FBI, and corrupt Justice Department prosecutors, those rank-and-file NSA employees who have blown the whistle on NSA’s illegal operations stand little chance of having their “day in court.”

WMR has been told by NSA insiders that if the full extent of NSA’s illegal operations became public, the American people would go into a “state of shock.”

Patriot Act reauthorized under cover of jobs bill

SEC. 645. EXTENSION OF INTELLIGENCE AUTHORITY SUNSETS. (a) USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005.—Section 102(b)(1) of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005

(Public Law 109–177; 50 U.S.C. 1805 note, 50 U.S.C. 1861 note, and 50 U.S.C. 1862 note) is amended by striking ‘‘February 28, 2010’’ and inserting ‘‘December 31, 2010’’.

(b) INTELLIGENCE REFORM AND TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT OF 2004.—Section 6001(b)(1) of the Intel ligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108–458; 118 Stat. 3742; 50 U.S.C. 1801 note) is amended by striking ‘‘February 28, 2010’’ and inserting ‘‘December 31, 2010’’.

From Politico:

A draft of the roughly $80 billion bill, obtained by POLITICO, has a wide range of tax credits and job creation ideas, but it also includes provisions unrelated to jobs, including a reauthorization of the Patriot Act, infusion of new money to the Highway Trust Fund and extension of the so-called doc fix.

It’s never too early to think about spying on your fellow Americans

NSA has some fancy flash games for your kids: http://www.nsa.gov/kids/home.shtml

How about the patriotic eagle guy?   This is why I use a whitelist filter on my kid’s web browser.

Too bad your criminal organization is spying on Americans and supporting the international drug trade.  I especially like their privacy policy. “NSA is committed to protecting your privacy and will collect no personal information about you unless you choose to provide that information to us.” LMAO!

New “cybersecurity” legislation major threat to free speech

Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) – The end of the free Internet, if enacted.

Yet another in an unrelenting series of  legislative attacks on liberty, this bill threatens to usurp ICANN and private domain registrars’ control of DNS (Domain Naming System) in the US.  DNS is the system that maps IP addresses (eg. 255.255.255.255) against names like mydomain.org.

SEC. 9. SECURE DOMAIN NAME ADDRESSING SYSTEM.

(a) IN GENERAL.—Within 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information shall develop a strategy to implement a secure domain name addressing system. The Assistant Secretary shall publish notice of the system requirements in the Federal Register together with an implementation schedule for Federal agencies and information systems or networks designated by the President, or the President’s designee, as critical infrastructure information systems or networks.

b) COMPLIANCE REQUIRED.—The President shall ensure that each Federal agency and each such system or network implements the secure domain name addressing system in accordance with the schedule published by the Assistant Secretary.

If the feds take control of DNS, they can set their own terms of service and force all hosts onto subdomains, deciding who can and can’t have a web site, blog, email or IM server, etc.  But one thing controlling the DNS will not do is protect networks against hackers.  Almost any type of network connection (except DNS itself) can be made by IP address, bypassing DNS entirely.

I wonder who the president’s “designee” will be.  Perhaps Senator Ted “Series of Tubes” Stevens?

If  these incompetent boobs can’t even secure their own networks now, what makes them think they can do a better job than private industry?  I haven’t been hacked since about ’97 when I ditched Windows NT.  I don’t need their help to secure my DNS servers.  Hey feds- If you want secure systems, start by ditching Windows.  If you can’t even get that thru your heads, how do you expect to take over DNS for the entire friggin Internet?  Who are you going to award the no-bid contract to, Microsoft?

This is about one thing: eliminating the networks that independent citizens use to inform each other and exercise free political speech.  They can’t stand the fact that you have access to real journalism on the web instead of being spoon-fed CNNBCBS propagada on TV.

SEC. 18. CYBERSECURITY RESPONSIBILITIES AND AUTHORITY

The President—
. . .
(2) may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network
. . .
(6) may order the disconnection of any Federal government or United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks in the interest of national security

So the president or his designee can simply shut down “critical infrastructure” every time they freak out and decide something is an emergency?  What exactly is critical infrastructure?

SEC. 23. DEFINITIONS.

(3)   FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND UNITED STATES CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS.—

The  term ‘‘Federal government and United States critical infrastructure in formation systems and networks’’ includes—

(B) State, local, and nongovernmental information systems and networks in the United States designated by the President as critical infrastructure information systems and networks.

Its whatever they say it is.  No measures, standards, or criteria.

This is not a misguided effort to protect our network infrastructure.  Its a deliberate attack on free speech, and the feds know exactly what they’re doing. According to Reuters, the previous head of the National Cyber Security Center Rod Beckstrom resigned in protest of the over-reaching role the NSA is playing in cyber security.

What is the first objective of a military when attacking any enemy?  Shut down their communications. We are the enemy and this is an attack on the ability of free individuals to communicate with each other.  Please write your congress critters immediately.  If you don’t care about politics, at least think of your 4chan and bittorrent downloads!

Unsubstantiated: eBay put Skype on iPhone ‘to boost price of NSA backdoor’