NSA Whistle-Blower: “Now We Are All Persons of Interest”
June 7th, 2013Via: Salon:
For Thomas Drake, the former National Security Agency employee who blew the whistle on the agency’s expansive post-9/11 surveillance programs in 2006, the latest revelation of blanket surveillance is simply “déjà vu.”
Drake, who was indicted under the Espionage Act and faced life in prison before federal charges against him were eventually dropped, told Salon Thursday that news that the NSA had a top secret order to retain millions of Americans’ phone records daily came as “no surprise.”
“Since 9/11, with the help of a series of enabling legislation, this sort of surveillance has become routine and institutionalized,” he said. “That order is extraordinary in showing how routine this is,” noted Drake — referring to the top secret government order obtained by the Guardian, in which telecom giant Verizon is commanded “on a daily basis” to provide the NSA with “all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad, or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”
Nicaragua Gives Chinese Firm Contract to Build Alternative to Panama Canal
June 7th, 2013Via: Guardian:
Nicaragua has awarded a Chinese company a 100-year concession to build an alternative to the Panama Canal, in a step that looks set to have profound geopolitical ramifications.
The president of the country’s national assembly, Rene Nuñez, announced the $40bn (£26bn) project, which will reinforce Beijing’s growing influence on global trade and weaken US dominance over the key shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
The name of the company and other details have yet to be released, but the opposition congressman Luis Callejas said the government planned to grant a 100-year lease to the Chinese operator.
The national assembly will debate two bills on the project, including an outline for an environmental impact assessment, on Friday.
Nicaragua’s president, Daniel Ortega, said recently that the new channel would be built through the waters of Lake Nicaragua.
The new route will be a higher-capacity alternative to the 99-year-old Panama Canal, which is currently being widened at the cost of $5.2bn.
San Onofre nuclear Power Plant Closing Down
June 7th, 2013Via: CBS:
The troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California is closing, after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely returned to service, officials announced Friday.
Operator Southern California Edison said in a statement it will retire the twin reactors because uncertainty about the future of the plant, which was facing a tangle of regulatory hurdles and investigations.
The plant “has served this region for over 40 years,” Ted Craver, chairman of SCE parent Edison International said in a statement. “But we have concluded that the continuing uncertainty about when or if (the plant) might return to service was not good for our customers, our investors, or the need to plan for our region’s long-term electricity needs.”
The plant between San Diego and Los Angeles hasn’t produced electricity since January 2012, after a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.
NSA Building $860 Million Data Center in Maryland
June 7th, 2013Via: Data Center Knowledge:
As its current data collection makes headlines, the National Security Agency is continuing to expand its data storage and processing capabilities. The agency recently broke ground on an $860 million data center at Fort Meade, Maryland that will span more than 600,000 square feet, including 70,000 square feet of technical space.
Last month the NSA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began building the High Performance Computing Center-2, an NSA-run facility that will be located on base at Fort Meade, which is home to much of the agency’s existing data center operations. The data center will be supported by 60 megawatts of power capacity, and will use both air-cooled and liquid-cooled equipment.
The NSA is already building a massive data center in Utah, investing up to $1.5 billion in a project that will feature up to 1 million square feet of facilities.
The construction at Fort Meade will see investment of $400 million in fiscal 2013 and $431 million in fiscal 2014. Up to 6,000 workers will be involved in the construction and development phase, the NSA said.
NSA Is Wired Into Top Internet Companies’ Servers, Including Google and Facebook
June 7th, 2013*snore*
Why is the media losing its mind over this now? Thanks to Mark Klein, we learned way back in 2007 that NSA was getting everything.
Update: And Now… Customer Records from the Three Major Phone Networks, Emails, Web searches, and Credit-Card Transactions
Via: Wall Street Journal:
The National Security Agency’s monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency’s activities.
The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.’s phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA’s operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers.
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Via: Wired:
As if news of the National Security Agency collecting phone records on millions of Americans wasn’t enough, a new report reveals that the NSA and FBI are directly tapped into central servers at nine U.S. internet firms, in order to provide constant monitoring of audio, video, photos, emails and documents as well as connection logs.
…
Firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities, is what drove a career intelligence officer to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.
Original: Documents: U.S. mining data from 9 leading Internet firms; companies deny knowledge
Robo-Raven
June 6th, 2013Via: Military.com:
A robotic bird created by Army and University of Maryland researchers is tricking real flocks — and hawks — midair, making it a potential unsuspecting future war agent.
Robo-Raven glides, soars and flaps like a real bird. Complete individual wing control allows for extreme aerobatics that no other mechanical bird has ever been able to perform, Army Research Laboratory researchers claim. But its ability to hide in plain sight and light weight is what excites researchers most.
“It already attracts attention from birds in the area which tends to hide its presence,” said John Gerdes, a mechanical engineer with the Vehicle Technology Directorate at APG.
Seagulls, songbirds and sometimes crows tend to try to fly in a formation near the bird during testing, but birds of prey, like falcons and hawks take a much more aggressive approach toward test flights.
“Generally we don’t see them coming,” Gerdes said. “They will dive and attack by hitting the bird from above with their talons, then they typically fly away.”
With the aggressive maneuvers they are working on, the perch and stare mission could be possible, and when combined with solar cell wings that the University of Maryland is working on, researchers could land and charge the Robo-Raven then resume a mission.
Robo-Raven is much quieter than the helicopter or propeller, so it could get much closer to an adversary without revealing its presence. It’s made out of carbon fiber, 3D-printed lightweight thermalresistant plastic, Mylar foil and foam. The geometrically complex figure is shorter than two feet and weighs less than a can of soda.
Programmed wing motion helps Robo-Raven’s wings maintain optimal velocity during the flap cycle to achieve the right balance at takeoff.
Britain: Armed Checkpoints on Local Roads Around Bilderberg, Residents Must Show Passports to Enter Their Own Driveways
June 6th, 2013Via: Telegraph:
No such encounters will take place in Watford this week, as the Bilderberg, the annual conference for 140 of the world’s most powerful, meet for four days at The Grove, a £300-a-night golf hotel close to the M25. The entire hotel has been booked out, and a high fence erected around the exclusion zone. Armed checkpoints have been set up on local roads, and locals must show their passports to enter their own driveways.
Britain: Police Investigate Fire at Islamic Community Center in Muswell Hill
June 6th, 2013Via: Guardian:
Police are treating a fire that badly damaged an Islamic community centre and mosque as suspicious amid continuing fears of reprisals after the Woolwich murder.
Specialist officers from the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism command are leading the investigations in to the incident at Muswell Hill, north London.
Police have also confirmed that graffiti reading “EDL” – which may stand for English Defence League, a far right group – was found at the building, while neighbours reported hearing a loud explosion in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
A large area has been cordoned off with officers conducting a fingertip search in surrounding streets.
Scotland Yard said: “The cause of the fire is currently under investigation and is being treated as suspicious at this stage … Graffiti reading EDL has been found on the building. Police are investigating any potential connection between the graffiti and the fire.”
There have been no arrests.
Court Documents: NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Americans Daily
June 6th, 2013Via: Guardian:
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.
Soldier Pleads Guilty to Murdering 16 Afghan Civilians
June 6th, 2013The following provides excerpts from the testimony of individuals who told our research team that they had survived or witnessed drone strikes, or lost family members in strikes.
Via: Reuters:
A U.S. Army sergeant who killed 16 Afghan civilians in cold blood last year pleaded guilty on Wednesday to premeditated murder and other charges under a deal with military prosecutors that spares him from the death penalty.
Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, admitted to leaving his Army post in the Afghan province of Kandahar last March to gun down and set fire to unarmed villagers, mostly women and children, in attacks on their family compounds.
“As far as why, I’ve asked that question a million times since then,” Bales said, in a calm, steady voice, when the judge pressed him for an explanation. “There is not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things that I did.”
The slayings marked the worst case of civilian slaughter blamed on a single, rogue U.S. soldier since the Vietnam War and further strained U.S.-Afghan relations after more than a decade of conflict in that country.
