NSA data will soon routinely be used for domestic policing that has nothing to do with terrorism

[dixiegrrrrl]

A while back, we noted a report showing that the “sneak-and-peek” provision of the Patriot Act that was alleged to be used only in national security and terrorism investigations has overwhelmingly been used in narcotics cases. Now the New York Times reports that National Security Agency data will be shared with other intelligence agencies like the FBI without first applying any screens for privacy.

The ACLU of Massachusetts blog Privacy SOS explains why this is important:

What does this rule change mean for you? In short, domestic law enforcement officials now have access to huge troves of American communications, obtained without warrants, that they can use to put people in cages.
FBI agents don’t need to have any “national security” related reason to plug your name, email address, phone number, or other “selector” into the NSA’s gargantuan data trove. They can simply poke around in your private information in the course of totally routine investigations. And if they find something that suggests, say, involvement in illegal drug activity, they can send that information to local or state police. That means information the NSA collects for purposes of so-called “national security” will be used by police to lock up ordinary Americans for routine crimes. And we don’t have to guess who’s going to suffer this unconstitutional indignity the most brutally. It’ll be Black, Brown, poor, immigrant, Muslim, and dissident Americans: the same people who are always targeted by law enforcement for extra “special” attention.

This basically formalizes what was already happening under the radar. We’ve known for a couple of years now that the Drug Enforcement Administration and the IRS were getting information from the NSA. Because that information was obtained without a warrant, the agencies were instructed to engage in “parallel construction” when explaining to courts and defense attorneys how the information had been obtained. If you think parallel construction just sounds like a bureaucratically sterilized way of saying big stinking lie, well, you wouldn’t be alone. And it certainly isn’t the only time that that national security apparatus has let law enforcement agencies benefit from policies that are supposed to be reserved for terrorism investigations in order to get around the Fourth Amendment, then instructed those law enforcement agencies to misdirect, fudge and outright lie about how they obtained incriminating information — see the Stingray debacle. This isn’t just a few rogue agents. The lying has been a matter of policy. We’re now learning that the feds had these agreements with police agencies all over the country, affecting thousands of cases.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/03/10/surprise-nsa-data-will-soon-routinely-be-used-for-domestic-policing-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-terrorism/


We did say this would happen...people scoffed back then.

[KG]

1. c'mon, if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. just ask our own resident

security state lovers...

[villager]

27. Yeah, the blindered, venomous apologists for this were, well, particularly blindered...

...and venomous, when posting about it...

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Oh my

I am not a prophet people, really. So how exactly should I pretend surprise here?

[GummyBearz]

16. You don't need to be a prophet, just a normal person who uses their brain

All of us with a brain could see it coming from a mile away. Yayaya, we got laughed at for invoking the 10th grade level "slippery slope" argument. But classified spy activities is one area where slippery slopes have happened before, and sure enough it is happening again. Something about the right hand not being allowed to know what the left hand is doing really encourages that left hand to do a whole lot of things it otherwise wouldn't.

And so it goes

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Yup

[Octafish]

3. The NSA Search Engine is a Keyhole to You

And it's largely owned and operated by the corporate cronies of War Inc, the BFEE.



Obese Intelligence

The NSA Search Engine

by BINOY KAMPMARK
CounterPunch, Aug. 27, 2014

The Intercept was already getting the intelligence community excited with its revelations that the National Security Agency had decided to mimic inspector Google. Through creating a search engine in the manner of those pro-transparency pioneers, the intelligence community was turning the tables on the very idea of searchable information. Why keep it the operating preserve of the public? The search engine has, as it stands, over 850 billion records about phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats.

The revelations have a few implications, the most obvious one confirming the seamless transition between intelligence work on the one hand, and the policing function on the other. The distinction between intelligence communities whose interests are targeting matters foreign to the polity; and those who maintain order within the boundaries of a state in a protective capacity, prove meaningless in this form. The use of ICREACH makes it clear that the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are regular clients and users of the system.

A 2010 memorandum from the Chief of Liaison Support Group at the CIA titled “CIA colleagues enthusiastically welcome NSA training” speaks with praise about those “NSA-ers embedded in CIA’s workspaces”. Indeed, it speaks very highly of the “information sharing” ethos of the NSA within the Intelligence Community, channelling Google’s operating rationale within more secret spaces. Furthermore, in 2010, the relevant data base provided the NSA “and second Party telephony metadata events to over 1000 analysts across 23 US Intelligence Community agencies.”

Those keen on squirreling information into such a data base are no doubt thrilled by the prospects that it can be made available to the “appropriate” sources. ICREACH has become one of the largest, if not largest system for the internal processing and sharing of surveillance records within the United States. It is not, according to The Intercept, connected with the NSA database that stores data on Americans’ phone calls pursuant to s. 215 of the Patriot Act.

The difference between the two accumulated pools of data is one of scope: ICREACH is mammoth in reach, and positively defiant in its push against the law; the database gathered under s. 215 guidelines is minute in comparison, confined to the dangerously pertinent idea of combating terrorism and like threats. ICREACH exists outside the system of court orders, being a creature of Executive Order 12333. The document, instituted by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was intended to add robustness to the intelligence gathering capabilities of the US intelligence community.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/27/the-nsa-search-engine/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those "in the know" have something the rest of us -- the "Little People" -- don't have access to: Inside Information. Judging by the historical record and the revolving door between the secret government and private industry, it doesn't get shared in a way that's best for democracy. No wonder the rich get richer and the rest of the country becomes poorer. And the wars for personal profit and concentrated secret power continue without end.

Oh well or Orwell: The scoffers liked to say, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about." Thank you for the heads-up, dixiegrrrrl.

[rhett o rick]

5. The best way to fight this is to lock up anyone that reveals. Denial has it's benefits.

Many Americans have grown up to be authoritarians and are more than willing to give up their rights for the promise of security. Just think what Ted Cruz could do with this tool.

[Octafish]

10. When was the last time you heard ''Frank Church'' mentioned by the mass media?

Last edited Sun Mar 13, 2016, 01:49 PM - Edit history (1)

Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) was a patriot, a hero and a statesman, truly a great American.

The guy also led the last real investigation of CIA, NSA and FBI. When it came to NSA Tech circa 1975, he definitely knew what he was talking about:

“That 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. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. A brave man, the NSA was turned on him. Coincidentally, he narrowly lost re-election the next cycle.

And what happened to Church, for his trouble to preserve Democracy:

In 1980, Church will lose re-election to the Senate in part because of accusations of his committee’s responsibility for Welch’s death by his Republican opponent, Steve Symms (not Jim McClure as recorded by HistoryCommons).

SOURCE: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_church_1

From GWU's National Security Archives:

"Disreputable if Not Outright Illegal": The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald, Frank Church, et al.

Newly Declassified History Divulges Names of Prominent Americans Targeted by NSA during Vietnam Era

Declassification Decision by Interagency Panel Releases New Information on the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Panama Canal Negotiations

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 441
Posted – September 25, 2013
Originally Posted - November 14, 2008
Edited by Matthew M. Aid and William Burr

Washington, D.C., September 25, 2013 – During the height of the Vietnam War protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of selected prominent Americans, most of whom were critics of the war, according to a recently declassified NSA history. For years those names on the NSA's watch list were secret, but thanks to the decision of an interagency panel, in response to an appeal by the National Security Archive, the NSA has released them for the first time. The names of the NSA's targets are eye-popping. Civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. Also startling is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Howard Baker (R-Tennessee).

SNIP...

Another NSA target was Senator Frank Church, who started out as a moderate Vietnam War critic. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Church worried about U.S. intervention in a "political war" that was militarily unwinnable. While Church voted for the Tonkin Gulf resolution, he later saw his vote as a grave error. In 1965, as Lyndon Johnson made decisions to escalate the war, Church argued that the United States was doing "too much," criticisms that one White House official said were "irresponsible." Church had been one of Johnson's Senate allies but the President was angry with Church and other Senate critics and later suggested that they were under Moscow's influence because of their meetings with Soviet diplomats. In the fall of 1967, Johnson declared that "the major threat we have is from the doves" and ordered FBI security checks on "individuals who wrote letters and telegrams critical of a speech he had recently delivered." In that political climate, it is not surprising that some government officials eventually nominated Church for the watch list.[10]

SOURCE: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/

I wonder if Sen. Richard Schweiker (R-PA), a liberal Republican, also got the treatment from NSA?

“I think that the report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards, and I think the people who read it in the long run future will see that. I frankly believe that we have shown that the [investigation of the] John F. Kennedy assassination was snuffed out before it even began, and that the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was not to use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up.” — Senator Richard Schweiker on “Face the Nation” in 1976.

Lost to History NOT, thanks to people who care, like rhett o rick!

[IDemo]

12. The last period of time when Democrats held any power here

We had both Governor Cecil Andrus, still considered by many to be the greatest governor ever of Idaho, and Senator Frank Church, a true statesman. Just a note - he was defeated in 1980 by Steve Symms, not Jim McClure.

Symms once addressed my high school class and stated that he had information that the Soviet Union had developed what he called a "subterrain", like a submarine with a gigantic drill bit up front. He suggested that they may be burrowing through the crust toward the US with invasion in mind. Between him and Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth, who advised Bill Maher that Idahoans feared "black HEE-licopters", this state dropped off the cliff politically and has never recovered.

[Octafish]

13. Thank you, IDemo!

I stand corrected (and happy to read you)!

Thanks for the heads-up on the change of climate in what is a very beautiful state.

[rhett o rick]

14. You deserve the thanks for keeping us up on history. History that some would just

as soon delete. Somewhere George Orwell is shaking his head.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. It seems, and seemed so damn obvious to some of us when the Patriot Act was rammed down our throats

Any Gov. which can think in terms of the Patriot Act is gonna for sure think in terms of MORE domestic spying, not less.

[Octafish]

11. These bastards have been using STASI toolkit to put the squeeze on Pols, Police, Military, etc....

Under the title “Online Covert Action”, one Snowden document details a variety of means to engage in “influence and info ops” as well as “disruption and computer net attack,” while dissecting how human beings can be manipulated using “leaders,” “trust,” “obedience” and “compliance”:



Cass Sunstein says, propaganda is what tyrants use. Who knows, Dixiegrrrrl? We might get others to think, and you know what that can lead to: what tyrants fear most -- Democracy!

[ronnie624]

4. We knew it was inevitable.

The State will use whatever power it has. How odd that anyone who is informed, could believe otherwise.

[Hydra]

7. You don't set up this sort of system to hunt for terrorists

You do it to control a population. Once it's "legal," the floodgates will open.

"It can't happen here!!"

It already has.

[hobbit709]

8. The Enabling Act of 2001

From wiki
The USA PATRIOT Act. PATRIOT stands for Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism

From 1933
The formal name of the Enabling Act was Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (English: "Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich"
Note the similarities.

[Downwinder]

9. NSA shares it with allies all over the world.

Do you think all those network are secure? Consider any communication as public.

[rhett o rick]

15. Those that are rich and powerful like the Clintons think they are immune. They are fools

if they think that. They are only safe as long as the control is in the hands of their friends.

I would like to know if Obama went willingly.

[earthshine]

18. Of course, he did. The security state was greatly up-ramped under Obama's two terms.

Security state spying is part of the ways of the third way.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/top-ten-things-dont-make-sense-about-obamas-security-state

[rhett o rick]

19. The fact that it happened on his watch doesn't necessarily mean he did it willingly.

The NSA/CIA Security State that was fine tuned under Bush is still in power. It's possible that Obama couldn't change it if he wanted.

[earthshine]

20. Did he ever speak against it? And then there's this ...

http://bgr.com/2016/03/09/apple-fbi-president-obama/

My opinion is that the security state is augmented by the wealthy and their pet corporations. Same ones who donated to Obama big-time for his election and stand to gain from the TPP.

You and I might argue about the nature of the problem. The best we can do for solution is elect Bernie.

[rhett o rick]

23. I see arguments on both sides. I do believe that the NSA/CIA Security State is extremely powerful.

More powerful than the president. And we do agree that electing Sen Sanders is crucial to reclaiming our Democracy.

[earthshine]

31. Y'ever seen this video? Bill Moyers on "The Deep State." Totally frightening!

NSA and CIA are part of the executive branch. Obama's passivity is/was *part* of the problem.

Peace.

[rhett o rick]

33. I haven't watched it but will. But back to my original statement, I wonder if Obama went

into the Darkness willingly.

[earthshine]

36. The video actually supports your original point of view -- that is out of anyone's control.

But, one still has to feed the machine from Congressional budgets and taxpayer dollars

As for "willingly," if one makes a Faustian bargain (selling one's soul to the devil), when the devil takes control, are one's actions from that point a matter of will?

In other words, to get elected in 2008, Obama took huge amounts of money from Wall Street. That came with a price — whatever real populist progressivism he had.

So, what he is, in actuality, is a third-way-corporatist centrist, wearing a liberal-looking suit.

He promised us a transparent presidency. In reality, his one of the most opaque administrations.

Give a quick click ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016147152

Hillary's corporatist ties run much deeper than Obama's. I fear for this country and the world if Bernie does not win. He won't be able to stop this, but he won't willingly feed the machine.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. Ths isnt new, exactly. Theyve been feeding spy data to the DEA for years to bust drug users.

[rhett o rick]

34. They helped nail Elliot Spitzer, a real thorn in the side of the Oligarchy. nm

[davidn3600]

22. This is why Snowden is a hero for exposing this bullshit

[rhett o rick]

24. I agree but there are many Americans that choose the bliss of their ignorance. nm

[Warren DeMontague]

25. The other thing that blows me away is, "parallel construction" = "lying in court"

Now I dont pretend to be some legal expert, but I think that in and of itself is a crime.

[questionseverything]

28. yes it is a crime

the scary thing here is they no longer feel any need to pretend

we have turned a major corner, sadly

[TM99]

26. Yeah, I posted about this a week ago

and my thread sunk like a stone.

I am glad this is finally getting more traction.

Vote Clinton and you will get more of the same Obama 'we love surveillance' tenfold.

[GoneFishin]

29. I never believed it was about terrorism. It's value in corporate espionage, blackmail of judges,

politicians, and influential business leaders, as well monitoring of political movements is so staggering that arguments about it's importance for fighting terrorism are a fucking farce.

[rhett o rick]

35. It's all about power. It's easily justified that they need power to keep us safe.

Their budget is unlimited and they have zero oversight. When a whistle-blower pops up, they scramble to eliminate the problem.

I think the stand-off between our "government" and Apple is a battle of the corporate giants. Apple, Microsoft, Google, ATT all wield tremendous powers and it's likely they won't all line up on the same side. I think the big mover is the Caryle Group.

[hughee99]

30. If the republicans win in November, I think you'll see a lot more DUers upset about this,

although it's the kind of issue that SHOULD be upsetting no matter who is in charge.

[awoke_in_2003]

32. We knew it was coming

with the passage of the Patriot Act. Now, smart TVs can here your voice. With so many people trending toward streaming TV across the Internet, monitoring people would be child's play.